


Choice Cuts

by Gods_Trumpet



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Eventual Smut, Legal Cannibalism, M/M, Medication, Murder Husbands, Slightly Sci-Fi, Solarpunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:16:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3196721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gods_Trumpet/pseuds/Gods_Trumpet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham lives in a world where human flesh is a delicacy of the wealthy. Of course, Hannibal Lecter feeds him people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flesh

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an idea I've been mulling over for a while- what if cannibalism was not only legal, but acceptable? Set in a semi-futuristic world where this scenario would be more plausible, and because I love working with futuristic and science fiction elements. Please, enjoy.

Will Graham had never tasted human meat before he met the socialite from Baltimore.

He had grown up in far southern boondocks, where the idea of cannibalism was merely an excitedly whispered rumor of the distant elite. Children in the rural gas-guzzler towns, the ones too poor and ethnic for renovation, towns where people lived in boats and converted trailers more than houses, would tell him when Will was their age about how so-and-so had eaten flesh once when they lived up in the sun-cities. Most of them subsisted on chicken and fish. The grass had been full of weeds, and the water brackish; there was not a solar panel for miles in the towns which raised him, not a patch of synthetic turf or a biodegradable wrapper.

To young Will, flesh was a fairytale.

Now though, Agent Graham was a grown man. He still lived in gas country, out where there were weeds in the grass. When he was needed, he was fetched. Currently he was in the sun-city of Baltimore, in a cheap hotel under the glass-panel paradise. Like all sun-cities, it was tiered like a cake, with the upper levels soaking up the sun energy in their solar panels and casting the lower levels in deeper and deeper shade; like all sun-cities, he couldn’t stand Baltimore. But today he didn’t have to. Will Graham was investigating a murder.

Several murders, in fact, six over the course of two years, all presumably committed by the same man. They had all taken place in the upper neighborhoods, the ones raised on graffiti-resistant alloy struts and plates to cast shade on the slums. This was the first unusual thing about the case; the streets of upper Baltimore were lined with cameras, and yet none gave any evidence as to the murderer’s identity. At the scenes of the crimes, the cameras would be found dead. This was how Will knew that his killer had to be brilliant and, very likely, obscenely wealthy.

The bodies were always arranged artfully, what could be described as statement pieces. One was staged with its arms lopped off, impaled with metal rods to keep it upright. From a distance it would have looked like a grotesque statue. All of them lacked organs or limbs, as trophies for the killer. They were removed by a trained hand, with visible love for the sport of corpse desecration. They had been removed freshly after death. This was why he believed the killer was eating them.

“I don’t understand,” said the police commissioner when she was told. “Why would the Ripper go to this length to eat the victims? Anyone living on that side of the city can afford to buy a choice cut.”

She blushed when Will raised his eyebrows. Legal though it was, the consumption of flesh was not usually so well accepted by the police- some people came by their meat through less than legal means. His boss, Jack Crawford, joining him on the investigation, put a hand on his shoulder.

“Because it’s delightful,” Will answered, feeling uncomfortable beneath the weight of a leading hand but saying nothing to oppose it.

“What Agent Graham means to say,” Agent Crawford clarified, “is that the killer performs these murders for enjoyment. Isn’t that right, Will? And after the Repurposement Act, the majority of serial killers caught have been known to eat the trophies they take from victims.”

“Cannibalism is a mere indulgence for him. He isn’t like other cannibal killers, poorer ones who eat their victims self-righteously. He has no need to prove himself.” He looked away, raising his eyebrows and sighing through his nose. “He’s bored.”

After they finished their debrief, they left, found themselves standing outside the middle tier police station, a building surrounded by bronze plaques that warmed in the sunlight to honor patrons and fallen comrades. A few hedges had been scenically planted around the area, and a single sad maple sapling. The altitude gave the air a chill, and Crawford and Will both pulled their jackets tighter when a breeze blew by.

Will took a small pouch out of his pocket. He reached in and pulled out a blue pill for anxiety, a white pill for headache, and a tiny indigo pill for mood. Swallowed them dry. He had to work his throat when the capsules slightly stuck on the way down.

“Are you going to be alright on this one?” Crawford asked him.

Will opened his mouth and shut it, then opened it again and protested, “Of course I am. We’ve barely started.”

“I don’t want this to be another Seattle. With as little forensic evidence as we got, as weird a profile, this case could be taxing; if things get too heavy, if I find out you’re going Seattle again, I’m going to sit you out.”

Another crisp breeze made them hunch up their shoulders and move towards the covered bus station.

Will gave Crawford a baleful look, harshly swallowing a vitamin pill. “That won’t happen again.”

\-----

Will’s hotel had none of the comforts of home- no fresh air, no trees, no dogs to keep him company; he had been put up inexpensively, as he always was on cases. He was in the first tier of the slums, the nicest part, to which natural light flowed more liberally than the lower tier. His room was spartan, grey and white wallpaper in a weird sort of paisley design, and he had only brought a single suitcase of clothes and enough money to last him several weeks. In some spots the wallpaper was smudged or yellowed, making the room look elderly. One book in his suitcase, though he never had the motivation to read it.

His window was darkened for privacy, but had he opened it he would have seen an electric trolley rail right outside his window. That was another thing he hated about the cities, on top of everything else that made him despise them: mass transportation. His little blue pills could only do so much for him when he was stuck in a crowded train. All the details were too much.

A knock came at his door, and he stopped shuffling with his clothes. Jack Crawford let himself in, the heavy metal of the door no match for him.

“You settled in?”

Will nodded, going back to putting away his clothes in the drawer. It gave him something to do other than talk.

Crawford moved through the room as though it were too small for him. He was a big man, filling up Will’s space even when sitting down on the end of his bed. “I spoke to an old friend of mine since we were in town, he invited me to come to dinner with him. I thought I would invite you with me, get you out. Hannibal Lecter. He consulted with us on a case four years ago, a strangler; the man is amazing.”

“Heard of him. You know I don’t like shrinks.”

“And I’m not taking you to get your head examined.”

Crawford sighed in that almost pitying way that ground Will’s nerves to the nub.

“Hannibal is a socialite,” Crawford explained. Will had run out of clothes. “He might as well be the socialite of this town, he knows just about everyone in upper-tier Baltimore. He’s brilliant and experienced. I trust him. I want him to consult on this case, to keep you in line and offer his professional opinion. I believe the two of you working together could be what we need right now.”

Will put up very little argument. He hadn’t the energy for it, for one thing. For another, the outcome would be the same regardless of his efforts.

He allowed Crawford to lead him out of the building, onto a sterile electric bus which drove them to a steel and dark glass lift that took them to the upper tier. They were stopped by the guards, mistaking them for slum residents, until they flashed their badges. Everyone else required a pass to reach the top tier. Will kept his eyes shut on the ride up, trying to fight the vertigo that came as a side effect of his pill regimen.

When he opened his eyes and stepped out, feeling queasy, the difference in tiers was striking. In the two lower levels, the buildings were all white and grey prefabricated things, sometimes decorated with splashes of spray paint. In upper Baltimore, there were houses, made of wood and brick, designed to look solid and liveable. The office buildings were panelled in dark glass. The air was cooler and thinner and didn’t smell so forcibly scrubbed and sterilized as the middle ring. It smelled like people lived there.

On the lower tiers, everyone walked or took public transportation, whichever was more convenient. Those with slightly more money might purchase a bicycle. Here, people could afford vehicles, solar and electric. Will couldn’t help but think, when one of them buzzed by them as they walked, that their killer almost certainly drove something to transport his victims and his trophies.

Hannibal’s house had three stories. Will instantly disliked him, just looking at his house. He learned two things from the face of the stone building: Hannibal was pretentious and he was wealthy, two traits he had learned at best to be wary of. He had no solar on his roof, too. He had enough money to buy his electricity for the sake of aesthetics.

Crawford knocked at the door. They were greeted by a sharp-featured angel. His face was angled dramatically, and separately he had features that by all rights should have been unattractive- his wide frog lips, his hooded eyes and faint grey brows, his razor cheekbones- but which formed together something warm and handsome. His hair was sprinkled with grey. After the second it took to look at his face and absorb its contents, Will looked away.

Warmth hit them in waves from the house, as though a hot furnace were kept on to welcome them. Will could smell something cooking. Hannibal beckoned them inside, accepting Will with no need for explanations.

Hannibal collected their jackets and hung them up in a deep coat closet. Jack Crawford introduced them in the foyer, standing between them. Hannibal and Will had naturally squared off and faced one another, though Will was aiming his eyes anywhere except at his host.

“I hope you don’t mind, I brought a guest. This is the gifted agent I mentioned. Hannibal Lecter, meet Will Graham.”

He looked up. Hannibal Lecter had a winning smile and some of the most horrible wolf teeth. They looked like a bad fashion statement, though Will assumed they were natural, as he didn’t look the type for implants or false anythings. He was a classical man.

He extended his hand politely, eager to shake with Will. “How do you do?”

“I don’t.”

Crawford had to fight the urge to roll his eyes, for the sake of his friend. His lips pressed together stonily.

Smiling still, perhaps even more brightly, Hannibal retracted his hand and dipped his head in a shallow nod instead. Will fidgeted awkwardly with his hands. Hannibal was dressed in a blue check suit, looking as old-fashioned and darkly regal as the rest of the house. He had picked and chosen the juicy, delicate bits of the past to carry with him, left the gizzards out. Even his ostentation was precise enough to be tasteful.

“Not one for social functions, Agent Graham?”

“Nor for psychiatrists, for that matter, Dr. Lecter.”

Hannibal made a soft ‘ahh,’ in understanding. “In that case, I would like to apologize on behalf of my profession. I hope to leave a better taste in your mouth than my colleagues.”

“I thought that was what dinner was for,” Crawford joked, sliding his hands into his pockets.

Hannibal led them into the dining room, which had been laid out already for three people and smelled richly of meat and spice. He must have guessed Will was coming. Crawford must have mentioned wanting to bring him. The meal came in heaping quantities, in lavish displays that served no purpose. Just as Will had thought- pretentious. Like a gentleman, Hannibal pulled out Will’s chair for him.

He tried to despise the food itself, or even be simply indifferent to it, but found he could not, even when he learned that Hannibal himself had cooked. He was multitalented, Crawford told him, while Hannibal smiled modestly and watched Will from under his fair lashes. An artist, a former surgeon, an accomplished man in his field, and a chef- “And that’s only as far as I know.”

“How do you find the time of day?” Will asked dryly, staring at his plate. He was unfamiliar with everything in the dish, even down to the meat, but it made his mouth sing.

“Often I do not,” he admitted. “I try not to lament it, and rather use the time given to me to the fullest. I am fortunate to be able to provide myself so much entertainment.”

“And I suppose we’re fortunate you have the time to entertain.” Hannibal warmed easily to Will’s flattery, however blandly it was given, tilting his head to accept the compliment. Crawford looked from one to the other.

Will forked and cut another slice of the thick-cut meat, holding it up as though to examine it. “This is amazing. What is this?”

Hannibal’s expression formed polite surprise. He never seemed to expend enough emotion to be offensive. “Have you never had flesh before, Agent Graham?”

He set down the morsel and covered his mouth with his napkin while he fought a sudden rush of nausea. Agent Crawford got to his feet as though Will had begun choking. He put a hand up, trying to reassure him that everything was alright.

“I would have liked to have been warned.”

Hannibal was still watching him, unmoving, without even trying to look contrite. Glancing over, Will finally caught his first look, accidental, at Hannibal’s maroon eyes. He looked-- excited. His eyes had the dark intensity of fascination, the look psychiatrists always gave him, yet somehow worse.

“I apologize, I didn’t mean to distress you.” Hannibal set down his own utensils. His voice was velvety and calm. “Would you like to see the credentials of my butcher? Many find they feel more at ease at my table knowing where the meat comes from.”

Will shook his head. “If you’d just-- excuse me.”

He pushed himself away from the table and half-stumbled his way into the kitchen. Distantly, Crawford’s voice called after him and he did not respond.

Of all of the rooms he had been in so far, the kitchen was the most modern, the least gothic. The appliances were shiny and meticulously cleaned. In the middle was an island, and he put his palms flat on its cool white surface and leaned over it, catching his breath. He hadn’t even considered it. He knew it was ‘normal,’ it was fashionable to eat flesh, especially among people of his host’s status.

He couldn’t help his mind from wandering to the history of his dinner. Their sex, age, what they might have done in their cut-short life. What they had done to deserve it. He imagined their eyes in terror as they prepared for death, knowing the fate of their lifeless body was to become a meal.

“Will?”

His breaths were still shuddering. He raised one hand off the counter to wipe down his face.

He heard Hannibal taking quiet, careful steps towards him, afraid of startling him. “Do you need anything?”

“Water.”

Will checked the clock on the oven. He stood up straight and reached into his pouch, pulling out one of his powder blue pills by feeling for its shape. His hands trembled as he did, and he nearly dropped the little capsule. A glass was set down in front of him. His eyes flickered up to Hannibal, and finally the man was showing some concern in his face, or pretending very well to do so.

“Please go back to dinner,” Will insisted before he tossed back the pill. Swallow. “I’m just… sensitive.”

“That would be rude; you are a guest in my home. Jack Crawford mentioned your sensitivity, when he asked me to consult with you on assembling the profile, and I fear I may have been indelicate with you already.”

Will snorted, took a long drink. “I’m not interested in you being delicate with me, Dr. Lecter. Not if Jack wants us to bump shoulders.”

They stood in much appreciated silence. There was no noise at all coming from the dining room either, so Jack must have been trying to listen in on their conversation. Of course- Will was his prize pony. He wouldn’t want anything else unfortunate happening to Will’s precious brain. Hannibal looked carefully over him, like he was handling a worn and chipped antique vase.

“What is it about flesh in particular, over any other meat, that disturbed you?”

The question made his teeth itch. “I just wasn’t ready. Eating cattle is different from eating people. Have you ever looked your meal in the eyes? … Prison cattle, isn’t that what you call it?”

“Some do.”

“And you don’t?”

“I respect the food more than that.”

Finishing the water, Will briefly made eye contact and muttered, “Not enough that you don’t still eat it.”

\-----

It was 6 in the morning and another body had been discovered. That made two murdered within the week. This one was a man, an accountant, most of whose organs, from the heart to the kidneys, had been taken. He was sliced all the way down his torso, his ribcage wide open and his entrails removed so that the cavity was all hollow. The skin of his face had also been peeled back. A soft crown twined with thorny stems had been woven from part of his small intestine and placed on his head.

Will took a white pill, and a pink pill for nausea.

The street had been cordoned off where the body had been placed, sprawled on his back with his arms out to the sides as though in supplication. His eyes were glazed and dead, but one of the few things that had not been disturbed.

“The murders appear random,” he muttered, pacing a semi-circle around the body. “None of these victims knew each other, and there is no pattern other than that they were all professionals. They seem to have no connection- but each murder is personalized.”

There was blood on the ground, though not as much as there would have been if the victim had been killed in that spot. If the sun had been out, Will would have seen himself in it. Like all of the other attacks, this one had taken place elsewhere and the results staged publicly, and all surveillance had been destroyed.

Crawford followed Will’s path with his eyes. “Like a payback for some personal affront. Somehow, the killer knew each victim, at least enough to be offended by them. The question is, how.”

“That’s certainly one of the questions.”

Will stopped directly in front of the body and watched it, saw in his mind’s eye how the organs were unwound and slotted back into place until the body was whole again. He was killed first by asphyxiation, carried and stripped in some kind of vehicle, presumably where he was dissected.

“Why did I choose you?” Will asked himself, imagining the point of a scalpel digging into the stranger’s skin.

“I am meticulous, I don’t lash out randomly. You have wronged me. We live on the same tier, social equals or close to it. Therefore I’m extremely confident, arrogant. Everyone here is lesser to me, and I am expressing my dominance.

“I use religious iconography without indicating religious delusions, I create art from my victims, and I devour them. I’m not your garden variety murderer- no, I’m the cream of the crop. You’re my prize hogs. I am almost doing you a favor by eating you, finally putting your shallow life to good use. Until I make something out of you, you are hollow and without purpose. Beside you, I am like a god.”

He was pulling the victim’s insides out, listening to their soft wet meat sounds. Everything he wished to keep, all the organs, were set aside delicately. The organs were far more important than the victim, the only worthy contribution he had to make. “I’m repurposing you,” Will said out loud to the corpse as he opened his eyes.

“What are you thinking?”

Without answering, Will sat on the ground opposite the body, his back pressing up against the brick wall. Breaths shuddered through his chest. He covered his face with his hands.

\-----

When the knock came at his door, Will had been preparing to make instant noodles. He left the plastic packet on the yellow counter.

Hannibal looked bizarre on the other side of his doorway, in the same way that Crawford did- too large, too important for the space in which he stood. This time he was dressed in a grey sweater and white shirt, subdued clothes that made him look softer, blurred his edges. Will stared at him with his brows furrowed, grimacing.

“Did Jack tell you where I was?”

Hannibal was carrying a cooler, cradling it like a gift. “I hope you will forgive him for that, as I hope you have forgiven me.”

The richness of food wafted towards him, and he begrudgingly allowed Hannibal inside, saying, “I’m still considering it.”

He had brought dinner, a meal which was only less extravagant than he had served at his own home because he couldn’t arrange a table setting. Hannibal seemed curious about Will’s room, glancing around to absorb the atmosphere of the man who inhabited it. For once Will was grateful to have to put up with temporary living. The room was too barren for Hannibal to analyze, beyond the discarded button-down beside his unmade bed, and what little food sat out.

“He promised I wasn’t going to get my head examined, but I guess he can’t resist.” Will had his arms crossed in front of his chest, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

Hannibal moved past him, leaving a respectful amount of space between them as he walked. He had brought food in several glass containers, and it was still warm.

“He advised me to come,” Hannibal admitted, glancing up at Will bashfully. He had even brought his own dinner plates. “I agreed that I would like to meet you on your own territory, if we are to work together. Although I cannot promise not to be curious about the contents of your head, I shall try not to pry.”

Will snorted, taking one of the containers of food over to the table beside the bed and opening it. He should at least be grateful not to be caught in his underwear.

When he sat, so did Hannibal.

“For my own sake, I won’t ask what tonight’s meat is.”

“I encourage you to use your imagination.”

He had no need of imagination. He could taste it. Its pungence was easily recognizable now that he had tasted it once, the same meat that Hannibal had served him once before. It almost made him sick. Bastard. Will could not be angry with him though. Hadn’t he asked Hannibal not to be delicate with him?

Then again, that didn’t mean he had to feign his appreciation. He set his fork down with a porcelain clatter. Hannibal tilted his head. Standing, Will pushed himself away from the table and made a beeline for the folder lying open on his bed. It held crime scene photos from all of the Ripper murders, the elegantly brutal bouquets of bodies, all seven of them. He pulled one photo from each murder.

“I hope these don’t put you off your meal.”

Will laid out the pictures on the table between them while Hannibal looked on with the polite impassivity of a man who had seen gore in his life. He dabbed at his lips with his napkin. Will glanced up from under a fringe of curly brown hair to watch him.

Hannibal folded his hands, leaned over them to look at the pictures with a curious tilt to his head. “I have seen six of these already. Is this man,” he nodded his head to indicate that day’s kill, “the latest victim of your mysterious cannibal?”

“Yes. He took all of the organs this time, instead of being choosy. What do you think?”

Hannibal looked from photo to photo. “I knew that woman,” he said, nodding to a redhead whose jaw had been unhinged after death and tongue cleanly cut out. “She was a businesswoman of some calibre; I met her at one of my dinner parties. Extremely impolite woman. Perhaps the Ripper found her acid tongue irresistible. And this man, a surgeon, he was known to be an arrogant braggart. This killer is always choosy, even if his motive is unclear.”

Nodding, Will scooped up the photos and Hannibal continued to eat unaffected. “I believe all of these murders are done by the hand of a man who wants his victims to pay him for some wrongdoing. He chooses people he feels deserve his retribution.”

Hannibal raised his brows, fork halfway to his mouth. “You don’t believe him to be a sort of avenger?”

“No, nothing of the sort. This isn’t about vengeance, it’s too petty. These people offend him, they’re worth nothing to him but fuel and entertainment. They’re being wasted by living. This is a circus to him as much as anything. What’s more he’s-- he’s brilliant. Efficient, organized. He’s extremely bold to hunt in upper Baltimore.”

“He has no fear of being caught.”

Will watched Hannibal’s face as he ate, the pure delight in the curve of his lips and the choke of his throat as he swallowed. Every taste seemed to be his first and his last. Will dropped the folder of photographs on the bed and they spilled out at the open edge.

“Now that you have finished testing my stomach,” Hannibal continued, giving Will a cooly affectionate smile, “I believe I have earned the right to test yours. Please, eat.”

Will sat down obediently, propping his elbows up on the table. He gave a bad illusion of eating, pushing the food around on his plate and never picking it up.

“It seems almost appropriate that you brought me flesh, considering the nature of our killer,” he muttered, eventually resigning himself to another bite. This one came easier than the first few.

“Perhaps this will help you to put yourself in his shoes.” Will couldn’t quite tell if Hannibal was being serious, or if he was teasing him. He chewed contemplatively, thinking about the trophy organs from today and where they would end up.

“He tends to take the harder to reach prizes from inside the chest cavity. Are we eating one of those tonight, as well?”

“The heart. I find that many of my guests enjoy it, but for squeamishness.”

Will snorted again, cutting another bite of the grilled heart meat. If he pretended not to know where it came from, he had to admit that the meal was delicious, brightly colored and savory. “Certainly unique. Why did you bring me this twice, since you must have known I would recognize it? Is your curiosity satisfied?”

“Yes. You have adjusted, and the meal has not sickened you as it once did. I have been wondering since last night why the meal affected you so.”

“Jack didn’t tell you much about me, did he?”

“I have been playing guessing games all along, Will, as you do. Jack Crawford only informed me that I would be dining with an extraordinary agent.”

“He wanted to see what would happen, too.”

There was a pause while they ate, Will chewing every bite thoroughly before he swallowed. He had his eyes fixed on the plate and its contents, never on the man across from him. Hannibal’s presence needled him; he could feel it physically, the sharp and craving jab of curiosity, though when he finally did glance up, Hannibal’s eyes were closed. Will set down his utensils and leaned back, feeling queasy- this time, most likely a side effect of one of his medicines.

Hannibal opened his eyes as though breaking from a reverie when he heard the scrape of metal on the plate.

“May I ask you a personal question?”

Will dragged a hand over his mouth and looked up, then down, then up at Hannibal’s lapel. “You’ve been holding your tongue all dinner. All last night’s dinner as well. Do I really interest you that much more than the killer does?”

“The killer.” Hannibal tilted his head, gave the simplest and briefest shrug. “What is there to wonder? He is speaking to us already, communicating with every murder. You, on the other hand, have perfected your silence. I would be a very uninteresting man if I did not find you curious.”

“You want me to speak to you?”

When Hannibal failed to reply, Will dug out a pink pill and tossed it back with the glass of water that had been set in front of him.

“The long and short of it is,” he sighed, feeling the pill slide down stickily to his stomach, “that I am a very rare neurotic. My... sensitivity has been described as an overabundance of empathy- I mirror, I mimic, I relate. In application, it’s part of what makes me good at my job, as well as what makes me border on unsuitability for it.”

“All but a few of us are capable of empathy, yet in my experience your somatic reaction to last night’s dinner was on the extreme end.” Another dainty mouthful chewed and swallowed. “Why do you believe that is, Will?”

“I thought you weren’t here to be my psychiatrist.”

“I do find you difficult to resist. I would like to help you.”

“You’ll have to excuse me for not offering myself up to your helping hands, Dr. Lecter.”

“I never asked you my question. May I?”

“As if I could stop you.”

“Were you a police officer before you were FBI?”

When Will’s face accidentally affected surprise, Hannibal’s became knowing, smiling. “I have known many of your profession in my time. I can imagine the unique guilt you must feel, confronted with flesh.”

“They don’t tell you those kinds of things. They obfuscate them, so that arrests one day become late night revelations of people who didn’t deserve to die.” He could feel the sweat on his palms and under his arms, on the back of his neck. “No one ever thought about them until later. Probably because the job was so hard to do for some of us when it sinks in.”

“And before it sunk in for you, what did you think of the Repurposement?”

“I just knew there was a raffle.”

An unnatural pause crouched over them hungrily. Will thought about every person he had put away- he could remember each face- and weighed their crimes. How many of them had been ‘repurposed’ when the raffle came? How many of them hadn’t deserved it?

A touch on his wrist brought him back to earth. Hannibal was leaning over the table, his sweater almost dipping into the food, so that he could place his fingers securely against Will’s skin.

Will murmured an apology. “I can get lost sometimes,” he explained, doing his best to sound unshaken. “I think it’s a side-effect, the loss of focus.”

“How long have you been taking psychotropic medication?” Hannibal asked, his fair grey brows furrowing as if in concern.

“You are not my psychiatrist.”

“Then I ask as an acquaintance. I believe in providing a prescription as a final resort, not as a bandage.”

Will snorted, nudged his fork around the plate limply. “Every month I talk to someone at the Bureau for five minutes or less and get my prescriptions refilled, and bloodwork at my hospital of choice every other month. I’ve resigned myself to it.”

“That seems an unfortunate way to live. You resign yourself to very much, don’t you?”

“You mean I’m resigned to catching psychopaths?”

“I assume you feel it is the only way to ease your conscience.”

He laughed humorlessly. “My conscience is never easy.”

Outside, they heard the trolley rattle by, making the tinted windows tremble in their panes.

“If you would dine with me more often, I might make myself useful to you. I could teach you my personal philosophy.” Hannibal smiled very genuinely, very kindly, the kind of smile that might fool Will into believing Hannibal actually liked him, and not just his brain. Will smiled back.


	2. Bone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Thank you to the wonderful willgrahamofficial on tumblr, who did this lovely photo edit to promote this work: http://willgrahamofficial.tumblr.com/post/108583009857  
> 2) Thank you to all readers, commenters, and kudos-givers, for making this story that much more of a joy to write. I'm deeply grateful for all of your support, and hope not to disappoint you all.  
> 3) I cannot believe I finished this chapter so quickly. I'm convinced it was a fluke, and should hope that nobody gets their hopes up about updates with anything like this frequency in the future.

Frustratingly enough, nearly two weeks passed without another murder. Will found himself impatient for another body, another message from the Ripper, anything to prove that the trail was still hot. This had happened to other agents before him on this case: the Ripper, demonstrating rare and incredible patience and restraint, would become a ghost and cease killing for months at a time, leaving not even a taunt for his pursuers.

“He most likely has a strong grasp on the workings of law enforcement,” he muttered to himself on the electric bus, going over the profile in his head. “Meaning he either works for the police, or has worked with them.”

A woman who was on the bus with her fussy toddler gave him an odd look, hearing him indistinctly. Her son looked up at him, crocodile tears still welling in his eyes. Will offered a weak, painful smile and looked away. A scrolling news blurb reported a new lead on a string of murders in the Baltimore slums- as though the police were really exerting themselves terribly in that part of the city.

Hannibal had invited him to upper Baltimore for dinner again. He had done so nearly every night since his arrival, and Will had consistently accepted; it was better company than his lonely hotel room, and a better meal. Hannibal was very sincere with him, and only somewhat patronizing. In such a short time, Will could not help but grow annoyingly fond of the man, even though he must have been having a field day dissecting every word that was spoken between them. Still, Hannibal did not exhaust him as others did.

Hannibal had not ceased to feed him people, perhaps because he was an ass who wanted to watch him squirm, or because he genuinely felt he should splurge on Will. He had the money and the means. If he wanted, Hannibal could afford to dine on flesh every night, with or without guests to impress. These rich people would do anything for fashion, and his dandy of an acquaintance was no different.

Walking in upper Baltimore, from the elevator to the home of his companion, was so free compared to the darkened confines of the lower tiers. It was no wonder they wouldn’t let the slum-dwellers into this part of the city. Anyone who got a taste of this fresh air, he thought bitterly, after years of the smell of plastic and metal and industry, would never be moved to leave again.

He was greeted at the door quickly, as though Hannibal had been waiting there for him. The warmth of Hannibal’s house, soft and overbearing, caught him and pulled him over the threshold. As was routine, he shucked his jacket and Hannibal put it in the coat closet, before they moved to the sitting room.

Before dinner, while they sat in the dim sitting room, Will laid plain his angst for Hannibal, arms crossed over his chest.

“It would be more bearable if he were taunting us,” he complained, standing behind the chair that was intended for him to sit in. “In a way, he’s taunting us still, by denying us a breadcrumb trail. If things go this way for too long, I’ll be reassigned, and this… monster will be out there all the time.”

Hannibal had poured himself a glass of wine- Will had declined, unable to drink with his medication- and he sipped from it. “Why do you believe the killer has slowed again?”

He nearly said something very dry and a bit childish (“Why do you think he has, Dr. Lecter?”), but restrained himself. “Because he’s not an ordinary killer. He has no compulsion, only pure desire. He knows that the more he kills, the less shrouded he becomes, the more likely is his capture. So, he becomes strategic.”

It was very easy, very comfortable, to allow silence to descend between the two of them. The conversation had not ended or petered away awkwardly. It was only being given room to breathe and bud. A clock ticked softly from some distant corner of the room, measuring the beats between their voices. Hannibal drank more of his wine, mulling over the flavor and Will’s words.

“Do you enjoy your job, Will?” he asked at last.

“Does anyone really enjoy this job? Sure, everyone else finds it fascinating, but I wouldn’t say that to do what we do is enjoyable.”

“But do you have no passion for it? No sense of idealism?”

Will actually smiled, looking down at his shoes. It would be embarrassing to admit to that kind of naivety, the idea that he was changing the world. The kinds of ideas trainees got in their heads. “Maybe. I’m sure I did at one point.”

He nodded. “How long will you stay?”

“I don’t know. Nothing outwards of a week from now.”

“Selfishly, I wish for you to remain here,” Hannibal admitted, setting his wine glass down. “I consider you a friend for as short a time as I have known you, and it would be a terrible loss to see you go.”

“Even if it means more people die?”

“Would they not die anyway?”

Will made a sharp hissing noise between his teeth. “It’s harder for me to be so blasé about it, Hannibal. It’s my job not to be.”

Their eyes met, which was something that had taken to happening between them and which was not wholly awful for Will. Their gazes held. Hannibal was sincere now, he could tell. Will knew he should be flattered that Hannibal prized his company so highly, but the notion made him feel guilty. He couldn’t help but wonder how Hannibal could feel as he did.

“I suppose that answers your question,” he sighed. “What I think about what I do.”

“It is a heavy obligation, to be the master of who lives and who dies.”

He almost protested that he didn’t think of himself that way. Instead, he looked away and pressed his lips firmly in a line.

Will said finally, “I’d never claim to have control over something like that. Aren’t I just a man?”

“Yet you seek to control it,” Hannibal needled, clearly intent on pursuing this point. Will relented and resigned himself to follow it. “You persecute those who commit what you deem to be serious crimes, and you punish them. You have become the arbiter of who deserves to live.”

“It sounds like you’re applying the killer’s profile to me, Doctor.”

“If I am, it is only because I believe so strongly in your ability to become him.”

Will unfolded his arms and leaned on the back of the chair. “I'd rather not identify with him too deeply, only just enough to slip into his skin and back out again. Overidentifying with killers has been a problem for me in the past.”

“Is that what happened in Seattle?”

Rat bastard. After the instant of surprise, Will clenched his jaw so hard his teeth started to grind. He could just imagine it now, Jack Crawford’s patronizing voice as he explained the Seattle tragedy. They had done their very best to keep it out of the news.

“Jack had no right to tell you about that,” he bit. His voice had gone tight and bristly.

“Jack Crawford has more respect for you than you imagine,” Hannibal placated, shifting in his seat. “He told me that there had been an incident there, and left me deeply curious as to its nature. I very callously gave into that curiosity.”

Will was still incensed, filled with the urge to storm out or shut down. He knew that Crawford and Hannibal talked about him behind his back, had become bitterly accustomed to it, but he had not imagined that his boss would betray him like this. Hannibal was merely the means by which Crawford had undermined him yet again.

Still leaning over the chair, Will dragged a hand over his mouth. In absence of a target, his anger began to fizzle out. Hannibal had been victim to Crawford’s game, he was sure, just like Will himself was. It had become plain that Hannibal was not only being asked to consult or befriend.

“It isn’t your fault.”

Hannibal smiled with his eyes and the very corners of his lips. “Until you wish to tell me about it yourself, it is forgotten.”

Hannibal only had to wait until that evening’s meal for his curiosity to be satisfied. Tonight they ate tongue.

Over time it had become easier for Will to pretend that he was eating any other meat but human- so easy that he could forget all of his distaste until after the table had been cleared. Hannibal served as a welcome distraction from the reality of their meals. Perhaps Hannibal’s company was what made the flesh bearable at all. Will wished in the most private moments of his hotel room solitude, as disgusted as it made him feel in hindsight, that he would not have to dine without Hannibal for as long as he was trapped in this city.

As always, Hannibal pulled out Will’s chair for him to sit down before the banquet. This time, though, cool fingertips brushed innocently against the back of his neck. Will stiffened. They said nothing of it.

“The way you feed me, I nearly suspect you of trying to fatten me up to some foul end.” Will pushed the food around his plate before daring to take a bite. He was certainly going to hell, if this was how he handled temptation.

“Afraid I’ll cannibalize you too, Will?”

“I don’t know if I would put it past you. You have a hell of an appetite.”

They descended into eating. He watched Hannibal chew and swallow, cheerful as ever with his own work. That strange, endearing face, curled into delight. He loathed how much he trusted him. Will cleared his throat and looked down at his own, now somewhat messy, plate.

“Yes, Will?”

“In Seattle…”

Hannibal stopped everything, devoted his full, hungry attention to Will. His hand twitched as though with the instinct to reach out. “Tell me what happened. Please.”

“I had something of a break with reality,” he said haltingly, fighting to pull each word out.

Jack had blamed them both in equal measure for the incident. In his report he had admitted fault for even allowing Will to remain in the field when he was so obviously crumbling. Being in hospital, Will was unable to write his own report. If he had, and been able to be honest, very likely he would still be in a locked ward somewhere.

Will set his silverware down, no longer interested in eating. His stomach had begun to churn anxiously, his mouth to dry.

“There was a serial killer in Seattle that we were tracking.” He swallowed. “He was a fox and we were the hounds; he would string up young women by their wrists, flayed desperately, like raiding the chicken coop. He had just finished his third when I was assigned to him. He wasn’t a sadist, the mutilations were all post-mortem. He’s dead now. I was taken off the case before they caught him, but he wouldn’t let himself be taken alive. I’m convinced that he was-- he was distressed by his compulsion to kill. He would never be able to stop.

“And over the course of my work I began to overidentify with him. I don’t know what it was, exactly, that made me so drawn to him, but I was beyond obsessed. I- I still wonder sometimes if there are pieces of him left within me. We had a witness, a woman who happened to fit the killer’s victimology: white, early twenties, educated. She had stepped forward to talk about what she had seen, and the way she spoke of the scene, I was filled with… Familiarity.”

Will covered his mouth with his hand. Hannibal had begun sitting forward in his seat intently, the way he had done when Will had choked on his first bites of flesh.

“You felt the compulsion of the killer,” Hannibal finished for him, voice gentle. “Your compassion is nothing to be ashamed of.”

Will said nothing for a while, did nothing but look at his plate as though it were a point in the distance on which he couldn’t manage to focus. The meal tasted no different than if he would have killed the main course himself. His chest was tight when he finally took a fresh breath. He put his hand down on the table, but balled it into a fist to keep himself grounded.

“I was sent to a psychiatric hospital after what I did. I was there for- god, a month or two? I’m lucky I still have my job, the team vouched for me to be able to keep it. Sometimes I still wonder how I could have done it. If I should still be here, doing this, after what I did to her. She didn’t deserve it.”

“I understand. But that is why we eat those who do.”

He could feel when Hannibal took his hand and unclenched his fingers, and he did not fight it as he once might have. When his flat palm lay on the table, Hannibal’s covering it, it felt like releasing a breath he had been holding for years. Hannibal’s touch was cool, light and soothing. He demanded nothing- for now, all he wanted was to help.

They sat in the quiet for a long time. Without Hanibal having to say anything to him, Will felt, for the first time, that what had happened was not his fault. That he could be redeemed. He felt his mind calming.

“May I ask. What did you feel when you took that woman’s life?”

Will thought about it for a few moments. “Horror,” he lied.

\----

Kills eight and nine came as a package.

He was genuinely impressed with it, for as much as he was repulsed. The care and craftsmanship it must have taken to piece together this chimera was astounding. Two bodies, one milky pale and the other rich cedar brown, had become fused into one in death. The seams were perfect and clean, giving the eerie effect of looking at a mannequin with mismatched parts.

The body, for it was one complete monstrosity, had been discovered in the morning by a local jogger, who had approached it, mistaking it for a living person. She was still in shock.

The body of the two men, slotted together like puzzle pieces, had been posed on the brick driveway in front of a home, their finger pointing stiffly at its door. Its owner, a Mr. Abbot, had returned from work, and had been directly confronted with the grotesquerie at his doorstep. Abbot had refused permission to have his house searched despite the police insistence. The local police had hardly been able to get anything out of him, but convinced him to stay inside his home until they had cleared the body away. Will could see him peeking from behind the curtains as he waited for the crowd to disperse.

The house itself gave Will little indication about the man who lived there. It was a neat two-story with a solar roof, and hardly gave the impression of being lived-in at all. In fact, it looked like a sterile catalogue home, with pristinely pruned hydrangeas placed strategically around the porch.

“This couldn’t be a confession,” Crawford sighed, alerting Will to his presence beside him.

“We’d never be so lucky,” he agreed. “But the whole piece is focused on this house. This is an accusation.”

They were waiting now for the warrant to search the house in front of them for any evidence, or for whatever the Ripper’s vicarious finger was pointing at. The area was still swarming with FBI and the local police, a handful of journalists trapped outside the yellow tape. Several of them, including a redhead with a figure like a chihuahua and the demeanor of a rottweiler, had tried to snatch him aside for comments. He had brushed them off as quickly as he could, feeling filthy just for speaking to them. Hannibal was supposed to be here already, and Will found himself yearning for his grounding presence.

When he arrived, pulling up in his glistening car, he seemed somewhat surprised to be in front of this house- his brows quirked in just that way, and his lips twitched. Will asked immediately what it was.

“I fear I am not at liberty to discuss it,” was his only answer, which to Will meant it could be one of two things: something private, or something professional.

Crawford invited Hannibal to join them on the search of the house when the warrant arrived, donning latex gloves with the rest of them. Inside, the house was meticulously cleaned and kept, white and tan walls, wooden floors without a scuff. There were no pictures on the walls, or on any counters or dressers. There was hardly even food in the refrigerator. Everything was in its exact place, cleaned and polished down to the tile grout.

The search ended fairly quickly, when multiple severed fingers were found inside a basement freezer. Hannibal had opened the freezer first, then called Will down to have a look at the macabre contents. At least five forefingers. They had been mostly preserved in the cold, though half of them were fresh enough as it was, cut within the last week.

“Hannibal,” Will said very slowly, picking up one frozen finger and turning it over curiously. “There are two serial killers in Baltimore.”

Will put the finger away and left the freezer door open. Several other agents bustled them out of the way, began taking pictures and bagging the evidence. Shunted over to the other end of the basement while the agents and officers worked, Will turned to Hannibal with his arms tightly folded over his chest.

He asked sotto voce, “Mr. Abbot was a patient of yours, wasn’t he? That’s why you recognized him and his house.”

“You know that I cannot tell you if someone has been my patient, unless they choose to disclose that information themselves.” Hannibal for once refused to meet his gaze, still staring at the busy freezer.

“You could be protecting a serial killer,” he insisted. Hannibal persisted in his silence.

Abbot had already been arrested by the time they found his little book, which accounted each murder and victim in great detail. He had been killing in the slums, preying on the weak and taking souvenirs, for the past month, making him the second known serial killer active in Baltimore at the same time as the Ripper.

“He and the Ripper must have some kind of connection,” he said to Hannibal at dinner that night, for the second or third time. “Serial killers recognize one another. I can’t imagine the Ripper, as accomplished as he is, wouldn’t have made some kind of an impression on Abbot. What I don’t understand is why the Ripper bothered with him. They filled different niches.”

“Perhaps our killer felt that Mr. Abbot’s way was inelegant, to the point of being punishable?” Hannibal suggested, spearing a mouthful and chewing politely before he continued. “Mr. Abbot had the opportunity, and squandered it. He was a coward, quietly preying on the dregs of society.”

“And you think the Ripper isn’t a coward?” Will smiled at Hannibal, amused.

Hannibal’s lips twitched, then mimicked Will’s smile. “The Ripper certainly doesn’t consider himself to be.”

That night they were both drinking wine- Hannibal had told him that he could tell he was no longer medicated, though he refused to explain how he knew this. He had only smiled knowingly. 

Will shook his head and took a sip.

“Whether or not the Ripper is a coward, we know he’s the smartest man in the room. He’d taken a break again, let the trail go cold for close to three weeks. He could have gone longer, and usually he would have. Was Abbot’s offensiveness really such a pressing issue that he would re-emerge so soon, and risk exposing himself? And we’ve never seen a double-murder from him before. Something very important has happened to the Ripper recently to change his pattern.”

“Might he have found himself a new muse?”

Will hummed an agreement. That was all he needed: an inspired serial killer.

Their eyes met, and Will knew what Hannibal was going to say next before the words reached his lips. He did not entirely mind the knowing.

“Whatever the circumstances, I’m glad you were able to stay.”

Wryly, Will replied, “Then you can thank him for that. You’re growing far too attached to me.”

Without breaking eye contact, Hannibal picked up his wine glass and offered it in a toast. His eyes glittering, he said, “Indeed, I am. To the Ripper.”

His gut clenched involuntarily. He looked at Hannibal in that instant, the one man he trusted, as if he were a stranger again. ‘To the Ripper?’ He considered it, Hannibal’s professed glee in flesh, his intellect, his connections. The thought made him feel like a traitor. After Hannibal had been nothing but supportive, he couldn’t bring himself to think such a wild accusation.

With a choked laugh that came out somewhere between amusement and exasperation, Will raised his glass so that the rims touched and softly clinked. “To the Ripper.”

\-----

Will felt obligated to go out and buy a suit. He hadn’t expected to be convinced to come to any parties, and hadn’t brought any clothes for the occasion. As it was, it had taken several dinners to finally cave to agreement, and he was not extremely happy with the decision he had made. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had been forced to come to any even semi-formal social gathering, though he supposed it would have been with the FBI if it had been anything.

He had to use credit, incurring a plastic charge, to pay for the damned thing, on top of the wine he was bringing as a gift, and which he would probably drink with Hannibal anyway before the month was out. The suit was stiff, a medium grey two-piece that fit him well enough off the rack as to be acceptable. He supposed he would be underdressed no matter what. Hannibal’s crowd was almost as ostentatious as the man himself was.

“Do you throw these kinds of things often?” Will had asked blandly when Hannibal first invited him, nudging a bamboo shoot around the edge of his plate.

Hannibal had been as ever indulgent with him. “Yes. I had been planning this one for some time, as I have felt the correct moment waiting to present itself. There is a distinct joy for me in hosting a dinner party.”

“It must be fun to show off.”

“And I would be honored if you decided to attend.”

Will raised his brows, saying, “So you can show me off?”

“I understand you are not fond of social gatherings, but your presence would mean very much to me.”

“You don’t want me to come, I promise. I wouldn’t make very good company,” he warned.

“Good or not, just to have it will be enough.”

The third and final time Hannibal asked was when Will finally relented and promised to come. They had been talking in the sitting room after dinner, Hannibal in his chair while Will paced behind his. He never sat in it, no matter how many times Hannibal made the offer that he might.

“As much as you must resent the prospect, the party would give you an ample pool of suspects to sift through,” Hannbial claimed, his last shot in the dark at convincing Will. “You can’t possibly interview every citizen of upper Baltimore reliably, but my circle will give you access to a percentage, some of whom will fit the profile.”

Will wrinkled his nose, considering it. Hannibal’s voice sounded as close to a plea as he had ever heard it, and he couldn’t help but be weakened in resolve. He sighed.

“I’ll stay for a short while.”

Once there on the doorstep, Will knew this would be every bit as awful as he had imagined. Damn his work- he could work on his own time, and not Hannibal Lecter’s. He had combed his hair very neatly for this.

He arrived far too early, and was able to catch Hannibal working in the kitchen for the first time. The door had been unlocked, and he let himself in. Quiet and unfamiliar instrumental music wafted over the threshold, carrying the mixed aromas of food he had come to associate with Hannibal’s home.

That Hannibal had not come to greet him was unusual, and Will guessed where he would find his host. Suit on, bottle of wine in hand, he had slipped in through the kitchen doorway to find Hannibal in a plain white shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and an apron. The work was nearly finished, if the state of the dining room was any indication, laid out with covered plates and hors d'oeuvres. Will saw him from behind, looking completely different without his layers of clothing, surprisingly lithe and triangular.

Will announced himself to Hannibal, calling the man’s name and holding up his gift. Turning, Hannibal smiled and welcomed him, and the prospect of spending a few hours here didn’t seem quite as bleak. Hair dangled in his face which Hannibal tucked behind his ear.

“A pleasant surprise to see you in anything but flannel,” Hannibal quipped.

“I don’t know when I’ll ever wear it again. I only bought it a couple of days ago and it might be the only suit I own.” That wasn’t true, he realized after saying so- he had one other decent suit that he had worn for a wedding a long time ago, which he had escaped from early.

There was empty space on the island, so Will set down the bottle of wine and leaned on the countertop. There was a stool, and he did not sit on it. Hannibal already had a half-full glass of wine out beside his work station, from which he would take a sip in between working. Will watched him silently, not sure if he should offer help or simply stare lamely until the party began. Hannibal was entrancing as he moved, like a dancer. His hands were flowing and precise, his every motion delicate and painterly. Will felt that, being allowed to be here now, he was privy to something indecently intimate about his acquaintance.

When he had expertly arranged the last dish and checked over the meticulously decorated dining room to make sure everything was as it should be, Hannibal excused himself upstairs to change. Will didn’t follow, but stayed awkwardly in the kitchen, leaning over the island and staring at its tiny marbled flaws. He wondered if the Ripper would really be on tonight’s guest list, what it would be like to meet him. If he would know.

To see Hannibal fully dressed again was odd, how much more weight and age the deceptive maroon check suit added to his figure. As Hannibal came closer, Will couldn’t help but notice a small patch of stubble on his neck that Hannibal must have missed shaving.

The first guests began arriving soon after, the early birds who came with the intent of chatting up the host. Will let himself shuffle over to the end of the room when that happened and Hannibal became distracted. He would only get in the way. Hannibal flourished under the attention, but managed to look across the room now and then, remembering Will’s presence and seeking confirmation that he had not disappeared. Hannibal would look at him, and Will would tightly smile and nod.

The house began to fill with guests, until there were over twenty in total, laughing and murmuring to each other in that polite manner of the wealthy and well bred. All the while, Will remained safely tucked away with a small plate of some delicious and bourgeois amuse-bouche. He watched the crowd, felt its seethings. He even recognized a few faces from the interviews they had been conducting across upper Baltimore. Aside from sparing him a sidewards glance, often edged with disdain or concern, they ignored him.

He should have known, though, that nobody here would seem to be a candidate for their serial killer. Everyone here had an air of frivolity, insubstantiality, almost uselessness. Many were socialites, defined by the role and with no other function beyond it. They were careless and flowery wall ornaments, interchangeable depending on the mood of the conversation. None of them were like Hannibal at all.

And then there was the pest who had been eyeing him up all night, looking at him hungry with curiosity. A slight man with a cool smirk on his weaselly face had made his way towards Will over the course of the evening, slowly, like he was working up his nerve. The arrogance of his posture belied a deep insecurity that Will could practically smell on him. He walked with a cane though he didn’t seem to have a limp. From the few-second glance he got, Will pegged the man for some kind of doctor. He didn’t have the effortless wispy grace of someone who was born to go to dinner parties.

Will tried to ignore him, tried to glance over to where Hannibal was surrounded by other guests- too late, it seemed, for there were too many people here now and he would be engaged with them all evening.

Finally, feeling his stare burn into him, Will turned to acknowledge him. He raised his eyebrows expectantly. The man cleared his throat and stuck out his hand that wasn’t holding the cane head. Will just stared at it until he put it away, slipping it into his pocket as if nothing had happened.

“I haven’t seen you here before. New to town?”

“I’ve been before, for work. I’m an acquaintance of Hannibal’s.”

“Ah. Wonderful town, if you know where to go.”

Will remained unresponsive. He could hardly believe this was happening. Nobody had flirted with him, least of all so bumbling as this, in an age.

Then, the five words he most dreaded to hear came out of this man’s mouth: “You’re Will Graham, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he sighed, looking over the man’s shoulder for someone who might save him. “Then you must be a psychiatrist.”

The man’s smirk split into the most smarmy grin. Will could imagine the forked tongue ready to slither out from behind his even, white teeth. There was something sharply, uncomfortably lecherous about him.

“I’m Dr. Frederick Chilton,” said the man, as though it should mean something to Will. “I run the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. And I’ve heard about you, Agent Graham. Not that I’m saying I’m considering your candidacy to be a part of the collection; only, you’re a fascinating man to read about.”

Will set his small plate down on the end table beside him and folded his arms tightly across his chest to act as a shield. “As flattered as I am by your interest, I am not looking to be studied for whatever paper you would like to write about me, and I never will be.”

Frederick tutted once, disappointed. “In my position, you would be tempted to make a man like you all sorts of offers. You know, I’ve worked with the BAU in the past. Given my professional opinion, allowed them access to my patients.”

“It must have really lent you some credibility.”

Frederick’s smile wavered, and his stare grew darker. Will looked away, out at the room, desperate to be left alone again. He felt like the field mouse being cornered by the weasel. He imagined forsaking the party and punching Frederick in the face.

“You’re here in Baltimore on the Ripper case, then?” Less than subtly, Frederick took a half step closer.

“You know I can’t discuss that.”

“Mm, no, I suppose you can’t with me. I’m not a gossip like some of these people, Will, you can at least tell me that much.”

“If you aren’t part of an investigation, it’s better to keep your nose out.”

Frederick sniffed. “Hannibal is lucky to have snatched you up when he did, I’m sure he knows all the details.”

“He knows everything we know.”

“Hannibal always did have odd luck with patients. Just goes to show. He does so much good for people, and then… Between the two of us, but that man, the one you had arrested the other day who was taking fingers, he’s been under my care. The second patient I’ve gotten who was formerly treated by Hannibal. Imagine getting two eggs that bad and then striking gold with you.”

“Hannibal Lecter is not my psychiatrist, he’s consulting with me.”

“Since when does Will Graham need a peer review board half as much as he needs a psych evaluation?” Frederick asked rhetorically, and it was only just too flippant and stupid to be truly mocking.

“At times it is wise for all of us to seek camaraderie, Frederick, however great our prowess.”

Hannibal had appeared at Will’s elbow, having abandoned his post to rescue him. Relief. Will took a shuffling step away from Frederick, whose smile had gone artificial when confronted with his host.

“Dr. Lecter. I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to speak with you yet.” Frederick extended his hand. Hannibal regarded it curiously before he shook it, as though he would have preferred to do it with rubber gloves on.

“Did you have something you wished to tell me?”

No longer smiling, Frederick’s eyes darted to Will before he answered, “Er. Nothing particular. At least, nothing that can’t wait.”

“Excuse me,” Will muttered, slipping out from between the two of them.

Will took a circuitous route to the foyer through the kitchen, dying for escape. He hadn’t realized that Hannibal had followed him into the empty room until he heard his host call for him. He stopped and turned on his heel.

“You’re leaving,” Hannibal surmised, looking disappointed.

“I’ve learned nothing since I’ve been here,” Will said tersely. “I’d rather go before anyone else recognizes me or, god forbid, Dr. Chilton corners me again and asks to show me around town.”

“Allow me to take you to the elevator?”

Will snorted, met Hannibal’s eyes and glanced away again. “You can’t leave your own party. I’ll be alright walking, it isn’t that dark yet.”

“I insist. For your trouble with Frederick.”

Will didn’t have enough fight in him to refuse twice. A hand resting at the small of his back to guide him, Hannibal led Will to the door. 

They lingered at the elevator station, sitting in the idling car.

“How many of your patients have killed people, Dr. Lecter?”

“There have been incidents in the past. I have many extreme cases come into my office.”

“Am I an extreme case?”

“Killing is not evil, Will, and you are not my patient. You are my friend.”

Hannibal put a hand on Will’s shoulder, and Will leaned into its comforting weight.


	3. Nerves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said, in last chapter's notes, that you shouldn't expect speedy updates? This was not what I meant. Please believe me when I say that nobody is more frustrated with me than I am. But I made it through the wilderness, for you good people. I thank everyone for their readership and support, and hope that this chapter- and lord, we have only one chapter left to go after this one, which I promise will not take another year- will be to your satisfaction.

Will Graham squinted at the piece of neatly folded stationery tucked into the narrow slot of the door. He had just come back from the usual dinner, and he greatly resented the reminder that all of life could not be so pleasant as evening meals (and the occasional lunch) with Hannibal.

Several days had passed since Will had skipped out early during Hannibal’s soiree. No more murders in that time. He regularly had to remind himself that he should take it as a blessing that nobody else had died in the unpleasant manner of the Ripper’s. He could not afford to distract himself, fretting on whether the beast had slipped away to go back into hibernation; if he had gone to fatten himself on the summer spoils and be content in the wake of his gory revelry.

It must be wonderful to be so easily content, Will thought, grabbing the stationery and opening his door. All the Ripper had to do to be happy, was to do whatever he pleased.

By contrast, Will’s days were rife with unpleasant doings. Since stopping his pill regimen, his sleep had been coming more irregularly and brought dreams of such vividness and intensity as he had not had since his hospitalization. In one of the more frequently occuring nightmares, he opened up victims to the soothing tones of distant orchestral music, and soaked himself through with blood by crawling inside their empty skins. He only slept for a handful of hours at a time, if that. He went through water by the bottle to make up for his night sweats.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, he felt more present in the case. Dreams had always had a way of giving him a sense of intimacy with his target. At the end of the investigation, then he could think about consequences. For now, he had to feel the Ripper.

Coping with that alone would be enough trouble for him, and the appearance of the letter plucked hard at his taut nerves. It would be something of an exaggeration to say that he had been harassed by Frederick Chilton, beginning the day after the party, but that was how it felt. Persecution. All because he hadn’t let the man crack open his walnut.

He wondered, staring at the watermarked paper, how Dr. Chilton had found his address. If anyone he knew had divulged information about him to the doctor, he would prefer not to know.

First, Dr. Chilton had contacted the police commissioner by phone and asked for him. Apparently they were acquaintances, and considering his work it wasn’t much of a surprise to field his calls during business hours, but the commissioner had graciously told him that she could not help. He was not invited to the investigation. 

Undeterred by failure, he next contacted Jack. He was less helpful than the commissioner, and, traitor that he was, encouraged Will to go and speak to him. Most recently, a note had been delivered to the space at the station that the FBI had commandeered for their investigation. Will slipped it into the garbage the first chance he got. Chilton was vaguer and vaguer in every subsequent attempt as though mystery would pique Will’s interest in him.

It did not. Will only opened the note now with the reluctance of the last bit of soap being poured out of the bottle.

The first note had been typed, but this one was written with a fountain pen. For a doctor, he had excellent penmanship. Will wondered if he had dictated it to someone with a neater hand. Show a little humanity with a handwritten letter, without risking analysis of his temperament-- or worse, illegibility. It would make him a better calculated person than Will took him to be, and his instinct was to brush the notion off. Then again, perhaps Dr. Chilton was cleverer on paper than in the flesh.

’Will Graham,’ he had written. ’I’m afraid we’ve started off on the wrong foot. I can understand and respect your wariness; with jobs like ours, it’s hard to trust anyone. However, I’ll ask you to put aside your ripe attitude towards me for the time being. Whatever set you against me, I’m sure it can be worked out. We can do some good things for each other in the coming days.

’I have come into very particular information regarding the case which brings you to Baltimore. Please, come to my hospital by 1-o’clock tomorrow, Saturday. This offer is exclusively yours to accept. I promise to make it worth your while.’

Will stared at the fine, looping signature at the bottom of the letter as though it offended him. He did not want to go. If only to humor Dr. Chilton, he really should go. He folded up the note into the position he had found it in, and set it down on top of the case file. It chafed him, but what else could he do but be subject to the whims of the rest of the world?

Lying back in his bed with his shoes and his jacket still on, he watched the ceiling. Tiny shadows faded and sharpened with the rapid pulsing of the overhead light, the same effect as running the reel of an old film. The hypnotic flickering slowed as his breathing slowed, as time slowed, and ground to a long, dark halt.

Men like himself were not allowed to have whims of their own.

\-----

The Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane was an obnoxious building for its location. On the highest tier of slums, its tower and pillars stood out starkly among the crowding prefabs. It had been designated a zone, three meters of empty space surrounding it on any side. The electric trolleys that just barely skirted the edges of other buildings gave the hospital a wide berth. An untouchable, loathsome thing, like a great big beetle in the midst of working class Baltimore. If Will didn’t know better, he would have believed that Dr. Chilton had had the thing built in the image of his own ego, but he could tell by the wear of the brick that the institution long predated the tenure of its current chief. Along with the courthouse, it was one of the last two buildings in Baltimore that might have even predated the solar revolution.

According to the Baltimore police liaison with whom he worked, the hospital was distinguishable from the city prison in two chief regards. The first and most obvious was aesthetics; the prison squatted in Baltimore’s underbelly, buried in concrete, and only the head of the beast even sat above-ground. It was like a dirty secret compared to the self importance of the hospital. The second was that, if one was lucky, prison sentences had an end. No amount of luck allowed anyone to leave the hospital, except as ashes. There had been an escape once, but people avoided talking about it. Very bad press.

Will opened the front door. The foyer and halls within were lit well, but strangely, with a sickly kind of artificial white light that set him off balance. A beefy security guard, sitting on the end of his desk, rounded on him immediately and asked to see his identification. Then, after flashing his badge as confirmation, he was escorted to the office. Dr. Chilton had been impatient for him. Will’s mouth twitched in the beginning of a frown.

“I’m sure I could find it myself,” he insisted when the guard fell into step right beside him. “I’m pretty confident in my ability to read wall signs.”

With all the humor of a drill sergeant, the guard snapped back, “Doctor’s orders, Agent Graham. You especially are under escort here.”

Will didn’t manage to catch his exasperated laugh in time, and the front end of it escaped. The guard, whose neck was the color and texture of a sweet potato bulging with veins, flared his nostrils and aimed his sharpest stare at Will. Will only saw it out of the corner of his eye. He wondered if Dr. Chilton was under the impression that he would be startled by the inside of a psych hospital and flee like a spooked animal.

Two flights of stairs and one walk-to-the-gallows corridor delivered him to a waiting room, where the guard left him in the hands of a busy secretary. The secretary, typing feverishly at her desk computer, was extremely beautiful, with a cagey angle in her posture and perfectly manicured brows. Her micro braided hair had been pulled back into a professional bun; she held herself like someone who, if she did not already have an ulcer, would develop one soon.

“Will Graham?” Her eyes didn’t move from the screen when she addressed him.

Will made an affirmative noise in his throat.

“You’re late,” she said, sounding somewhere between inconvenienced and uninterested. His eyes found the traditional clock mounted over her desk, and she was right. It was almost 1:30 now.

“Underestimated the walk.”

“I recommend the public next time, Mr. Graham.”

“Not a fan. Gets me queasy.”

He took a small step towards her desk. A pad of familiar stationery sat on her desk. When he tilted his head up and squinted, he was slightly gratified to recognize the neat handwriting. There was one mystery solved. The effort people could put into being human still astounded him at times.

A graceful hand (well maintained acrylic nails and chewed-to-hell cuticles) came down and turned the pad over so he could not read it. Fair enough.

Getting to her feet, she cleared her throat and led him over to the door. “You’ve been making my life unnecessarily difficult for the past few days, Mr. Graham. Dr. Chilton has been extremely vexed.”

“How is he to work for when he isn’t vexed?”

“I wouldn’t know. There’s always something to be vexed about. But when he’s extremely vexed, he’s impossible.”

She swung the door open and called for the doctor’s attention in a burnt, sweet voice. He had been poring over a book at his desk, using a magnifying glass to aid his eyes, with his posture trained to straightness and a serious expression on his face. When he saw Will Graham, finally ready to step into his office, he set aside his distractions and broke out into a smile.

“Thank you Stacy,” he purred, standing up to greet his guest. He moved with an intense focus on his own elegance, keeping his fingers against the desk in a way that gave the illusion of beginning a dance. “That will be all.”

Stacy closed the door at his back. Will had a sudden sense of claustrophobia, nausea; he wished that he were still taking antiemetics, if nothing else.

"Please, Will, sit. We have a lot to talk about."

Wordlessly, he sat in the uncomfortable fancy leather chair positioned across from Dr. Chilton’s own desk seat. It was cool, in a way which made the leather almost tacky to the touch, and it was stiff, as though it hadn’t been broken in yet.

He never accepted the invitation to sit in Hannibal’s nice chairs for their conversations before and after meals, out of habit more than anything. It would feel strange to break tradition now. But he could not help but compare this chair to what he imagined Hannibal’s would feel like. The upholstery would be welcoming and just slightly warm to touch, so kept by Hannibal’s ever churning furnace.

Dr. Chilton kept a window half open. Will’s nose detected a hint of smoke, and he could not decide if it came from outside, or if there were crushed cigarette butts hidden in the doctor’s trash. His rows of books looked infrequently read, decorative. His silver-headed cane leaned against the desk, also decorative, as far as Will could figure.

“You and I only have one thing to talk about,” Will corrected tightly, "and then I’m going to leave."

In a fashion clearly meant to reach the back row, he performed bashfulness. He looked up at Will from beneath his faint lashes, like Humility herself. “You’re not in a good mood.”

“Try not to take it personally. I considered filing for stalking and harassment, but I guess today is opposite day.”

Dr. Chilton gave a short, closed-mouthed laugh, and seated himself. He brushed his hands down his suit as he did, to smooth out any stray creases that might risk him looking less than his best. His fingers found a fountain pen on his desk and began to idle with it. Light indentations on the cap indicated he was a biter.

“I’m glad you changed your mind- lawsuits are so tedious. Down to brass tacks, then.” He had a voice like powder snow: cold, soft, not in itself unpleasant, but a signal of worse things to come.

“I do intend to talk to you about your case, though not as directly as I might have let on. The information is relevant, but initially it does have a sheen of…”

He twisted his mouth, looking for the perfect word.

“Self-aggrandizing?” Will supplied.

Chilton humored him by pretending not to have heard. “Of conjecture. It might take some time to explain. I’d appreciate if you didn’t embarrass me by walking out on me again, especially because I believe that you are the only person in the position to prove or disprove me.”

Trying to engage him, he leaned forward, tilted his head and fished for eye contact. Will refused to take such an obvious hook. His hands were folded in his lap, and his posture as prickled and uncooperative as he could make it, pressing himself against the rigid back of the chair.

“If I have to walk out, you’ve already embarrassed yourself.”

Chilton looked at him with the limited fondness usually reserved for beautiful animals who refused to be housebroken. It was hard to resist the urge. He so rarely had a release for the petty malice that could build up in his stomach, and if anyone deserved to be heckled, it was this prick. The doctor practically wore a target specifically for acts of tiny viciousness.

“Noted. Try not to sneer, but I want to start us off with a bit of visualization. Set the stage. Let us imagine for a moment that you are a criminal mind. It should be simple for you, it is your job. 

“You, the hypothetical disturbed brain, have been seeing a psychiatrist. Not by your own will, mind you, but required following a hospital evaluation. You’re a clinical narcissist, with destructive antisocial symptoms and dysthymia. European white male, early 40s, if that helps. 

“Still, after all of the time spent talking things through, perhaps a little bit of hypnosis therapy at your doctor’s suggestion, you go out and kill… suppose we say you kill twelve people before you get caught. And when you’re caught, the judge orders that your name be put into lottery as many times as legally allowed, while you serve out your life sentence at a facility for the criminally insane. What is your opinion of your psychiatrist, Will?”

Will, who had been following Chilton’s train of thought intensely, sighed. “I can’t give you a good impression without seeing his work, but… On some level I’d blame the shrink, obviously. If I’d never been caught, I’d think everything I accomplished was all on me. But I failed. Bad for my self-image. It’s easier to accept that the fault comes from somewhere outside of myself- I was out of control, and nobody saw the signs. Makes my last few months bearable, if my doctor has to take the responsibility for me.”

The smile had broken out again across Chilton’s face, now more insufferable than ever. He tapped his fountain pen enthusiastically against the desk. “You would think so, wouldn’t you?”

Will levelled him with a look, unimpressed.

“Wow. Which of your patients has astounded you by defying expectations this time? Do you call the FBI every time an inmate’s behavior isn’t textbook?”

With the ease of someone possessed of the self assurance to dismiss the constant disrespect leveled at him, Chilton said in his flippant, stupid way, “Patients, please, not inmates. They say ’inmates’ is demoralizing. You’ll find it’s not so painful to give my intelligence a touch more credit than that. I went to medical school like everyone else.”

“That’s part of the problem. I’m predisposed against psychiatrists.”

“Except for Hannibal Lecter, of course, your good friend and temporary case consultant. What happened there?”

Will’s eyebrows jumped. “Hannibal is the exception that makes the rule.”

“He always seems to be. The most consistently exceptional man I’ve ever met. You’re an example of his uncanny talent for winning loyalty from anyone- for instance, from his patients. Including those couple of bad eggs that went from his basket into mine.

“When I received the first, I assumed it was incidental that he vehemently defended Dr. Lecter, went so far as to say that his therapy was helpful. He was fairly lucid, no psychotic symptoms. But, you know, a loner. It seemed natural that he’d attached some kind of emotional significance to Dr. Lecter. During his spree, his psychiatrist was the only person he had contact with whom he did not kill. Dr. Lecter regularly visited him until the time of his death, told me just how terribly he felt about all of it. 

“Surprisingly, he didn’t wait for the lottery. If memory serves me, it must have been very soon after you came to town. Thirty minutes after a visit, he punctured his own trachea with a plastic knife three times.” With a roll of his eyes at the memory, Chilton scoffed, “We’ve had to stop providing knives with meals since then. I’m surprised the board didn’t ban forks as well. It’s ridiculous. The level of commitment required for that is rare here. If they’re going to take their own lives, they generally do it before they’re imprisoned.”

“Dr. Chilton, is there a point to this story?” Will could feel the creeping, almost precognitive sense that he knew the point already. He both dreaded to bring it to its conclusion, and longed for it to end, like the need to vomit.

Chilton set his pen down on the desk and let all of the affected lightness slip from his face. Will began to get increasingly nauseous.

“As an isolated case, that might have been the end of it; a little strange, ultimately unremarkable. Two men of varied pathologies, whose only past offenses were respectively assault and soliciting favors from a prostitute, and who shared nothing in common but a psychiatrist, both happen to kill multiple people within the same year?” 

He enunciated theatrically, “I believe that’s the beginning of a pattern.”

Will closed his eyes the way he would at the start of a coming headache. “Your conjecture is that Hannibal Lecter makes his patients kill people?”

“Well. He doesn’t make anyone do anything, I’m sure. One could hardly even call it coercion. Like cult leaders, he uses a kind of word magic to persuade people into… getting ideas.”

“You sound like a conspiracy theorist,” Will said lamely.

“Wait until I tell you what they put in the water.”

The quiet was very horrible when neither of them spoke. Dull roaring from the city outside blanketed the room like a fine coat of dust and machine oil. Chilton rapped his fingers on the desk.

“Of course, I can’t prove anything, not in so many words. Thomas Abbot’s fanaticism has worn off since Dr. Lecter failed to visit; he told me everything I could dream of hearing. I suppose I can thank you for that, being Dr. Lecter’s new favorite occupation, and one much more interesting than a locked up has-been. Still, it’s hard to argue the word of a mental patient against that of his eminent former psychiatrist.”

“Other than spite for Hannibal, why do you believe him?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense. Dr. Lecter is the thread which connects all three active serial killers in Baltimore within the last few years. If you understand my meaning.”

The ancient echo of toasting the Ripper jolted to the fore of his mind. He wanted to laugh. He didn’t, because the air had caught painfully in his lungs and he could not breathe, let alone laugh. He wanted to vomit, as well, and he swallowed down on the urge. Something in his face must have given him away, because Chilton moved even closer, near to lifting out of his seat.

The words “I don’t believe you,” hurtled out of his mouth before Chilton got his chance to speak.

To his credit, Chilton was not moved by Will’s shoddy defense. As he was halfway there already, he leveraged himself to his feet, and plucked up his cane. Will watched him make his way to a wood cabinet on the far wall. He did not move with a limp, but there was a stiffness to the way that he carried himself as he walked.

“Yes you do, Will. You’re very keen. I’m inclined to think that you believed Hannibal could be the Ripper before I brought it to your attention at all.”

Chilton pulled a brandy decanter and a pair of glasses out of his cabinet one at a time. Half-turning to look at him, he asked, “Do you drink?”

“No.” After a moment of thought, he held up his hand and changed his answer to, “Yes. I didn’t for a long time.”

“Thank you. I’m sure you wouldn’t allow me the satisfaction of being your exception, so I have to ask. Did he lure you halfway off the wagon before you threw yourself over the side?”

“I’m not an alcoholic, Dr. Chilton. That wasn’t why I stopped drinking. He didn’t have to use word magic on me, either.”

The lurching sound of liquid being poured filled in the gap in conversation, while they waited for the air to cool and the tension to be carried out with the breeze. He had to carry both glasses at once, in order to avoid making multiple trips. His steps came hesitantly, but he determinedly and gracefully managed.

“Please, I'd prefer if you called me Frederick. Hannibal Lecter is an unusually attractive parasite. I can understand the initial appeal. There was a time when I couldn’t see past his glamors, either.”

Accepting the tulip glass when it was held before him, Will let it warm in his hand. Chilton remained standing, leaning against his desk. He held his hand over his stomach unconsciously.

“How did you injure yourself?” he asked, for something to talk about that was not his friend or his responsibility.

“I didn’t. I was injured through no fault of my own, in a patient related incident. It was very…”

Chilton grimaced at the memory and sipped from his brandy. “Painful. You keep unfortunate company by counting yourself among those who are predisposed against their psychiatrists. Dr. Lecter owns the entire city’s worth of luck and then some. If not for him, I think you might have warmed to me.”

“I don’t. If not for Hannibal, I might not be here at all.” He took a drink and made a little face- extremely sweet and strong, like an unfortunate hybrid of warm, cheap vodka and dessert wine.

“To Hannibal Lecter,” Chilton drawled ironically, holding out his glass for a mock toast. “For bringing us together.”

Despite his distaste, Will kept drinking as Chilton did. The flavor reminded him almost of children’s medicine- or maybe it was his reluctance to drink it which brought him back to memories of a syringe full of pink liquid being forced into his mouth.

“If you’re right, how do you expect me to ensnare him into being worthy of arrest?” Will asked after swallowing, and resolving to take larger sips to make it disappear faster. “On paper, he’s cleaner than I am.”

“That’s the difficulty of it. He’s sure to have a hell of a lawyer when the time comes, so anything you find without a warrant or an invitation is liable to be thrown out in court. My advice would be to do what you must to engineer a confession. Anything you can construe as a confession, to get your foot in the door. Put a wire on yourself if you must.”

Chilton adjusted himself so that he sat on the corner of his desk. His posture was still perfect, but if the state of his knuckles were anything to go by, white from his grip on the desk, whatever old injury he had was giving him grief.

“Do you know anything about flowers?” Chilton asked suddenly, and Will realized he had been staring in one spot for too long, at Chilton’s clenched hand.

He shook his head ‘no.’ He had nothing against flowers, but he had never taken any particular interest in them either. On his own property, he barely managed to keep the yard mowed. It would be overgrown by now.

Chilton nodded, back to smiling. “I don’t have the time to manage a garden, given my working hours, but I’ve always taken an interest in flower language. To circumvent the standards for communication, especially between unmarried lovers, the Victorians invented a code language. If you were out of the loop, you could miss the entire meaning of a conversation. It’s why you should never buy yellow roses for your spouse.”

“Communicate in Hannibal’s code.” He pursed his lips, took a large, harsh swallow. “Take him up on whatever he wants from me, if I am his new pet project.”

“There’s no ‘if.’ You’re a novelty, he couldn’t resist. Who wouldn’t want to dig their fingers into that beautiful brain?”

Will grimaced, nauseated again, and pressed his fingers against his eyes. Aware that he had gone too far, Chilton clicked his tongue. He returned to his feet and made his slow way around to the other side of his desk, to put space between them.

“The point is, he’ll be receptive.” Chilton trailed his fingers lightly along the uncracked spines of his books. “Give him red tulips, wrapped in red string. Anyone who saw you two at the dinner would know what the game is.”

“I know.”

“All you have to do is rationalize it; it’s entirely chemicals.”

“I know.”

“You’re not listening to me, are you?” Will took his hand away from his face in order to give Chilton a tight and practiced glare. In return, he tapped his fingers on the edge of his bookshelf. “I hardly expect you to be grateful, but you can’t make it go away by tuning it out.”

Will looked down into his glass and had the childish impulse to splash brandy into his smug face and prove how well he had been listening. With a deep breath in through his nose, he restrained himself.

“If I catch him, do you have a way to guarantee to me that he won’t be…?” He made a vague but morbid gesture.

Chilton scoffed in disbelief, just short of laughing. "Are you haggling with me?"

"No," Will shrugged. "I just want to be cautious. You still don’t have proof that he--”

"Please, don't pretend to be obtuse. It insults my intelligence, and it doesn’t do you any credit either. If you want to make a deal with me, all you have to do is ask. You'd think I was pulling your teeth."

Before continuing, he took a lazy sip and smacked his lips irritatingly. “If it’s the length Dr. Lecter’s life that concerns you, I have no intentions of allowing him to be drawn from the lottery. I’ve been known to protect my favorite patients. I know you don’t live locally, but I’m very liberal when it comes to visitation.”

“You want to make Hannibal one of your prime assets,” Will pointed out unkindly. “You wouldn’t be saving his life by keeping him alive. You’re only interested in studying him so you can publish the results, establishing yourself as the man who knows the Ripper best. It’s unsightly.”

Chilton juggled the accusation with a wiggle of his head and, seeming to find it fair, accepted it. He sighed, “Some of us are not cut out for public service, Will. Thankfully, you are. And as a public servant, your function is catching him. What happens after that doesn’t fall under your prerogative.

“Besides, I’m not prone to doing anything inhumane.” He blinked a few times, to add a sprinkling of sincerity to a bald-faced lie. “I don’t have the stomach for it.”

Will tossed back the last large mouthful of his brandy, trying to avoid the taste, and set his empty tulip glass on the end of Chilton’s desk. He coughed, and put his fist to his mouth like he was going to be sick. The doctor raised a brow.

“It isn't vodka, Will, you were supposed to sip it. If you didn’t like it, you didn’t have to drink.”

“I don’t think I could have gotten through this without a drink.”

“Bracing yourself for the impact. Your dedication is admirable. I don’t know how you can do it.”

Meeting Chilton’s eyes for a quick moment, with cloying brandy sweetness sticking to his tongue, he said, “Don’t patronize me.”

“I don’t mean to, if that’s what I’m doing,” Chilton assured. “I am very glad to have you on the correct side, where Dr. Lecter is concerned. I think that’s impressive, considering your relationship with him.”

“I’m an artist at self-sacrifice.”

“Well, don’t they say that’s what love is all about, in the end?” Chilton’s smile became subtle, and he looked down at his own hands on the desk. “You can go for now; I’ll want to check with you in a couple of days.”

Will got up from the chair and shoved his hands deep into his pockets for comfort. “He’s going to press me and put me in his scrapbook,” he said, stilted.

“My condolences.”

\-----

Will disappeared for a few hours. He moved automatically, walking without a destination in mind, without anything in mind as to his surroundings. The only time he became present again was when he drifted too close to the street, and a passing vehicle blared a horn at him, startling him back into his body. Realizing he was in an unfamiliar part of town, deep inside the circle and beyond the reach of natural light, he took a tram back into the better district.

He got into his hotel room and vomited into the sink from a combination of motion sickness and dehydration. He rinsed his mouth and spat, grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and lay back on his bed to watch the fluorescent lights pulse against the spackled ceiling.

Someone knocked at the door. He flicked his eyes towards it, trying to decide if it was worth answering. It was an urgent knock, but he knew, by the cadence or by some unconscious ability to sense his presence, that it was Hannibal. Will wasn’t sure whether or not he would give himself away, but he had never wanted so strongly to see Hannibal’s face.

Moving to the door felt like moving through mire, like his hotel room had been flooded and seeded with cattails. The carpet turned into Louisiana sucking-mud.

He opened the door and Hannibal was no less bedecked in soft lights than he ever was.

Hannibal was dressed informally, as he had been the last time he entered Will’s territory. In coincidence with his slightly disarrayed hair, the wrinkles in his cardigan made him look like he had run, or been windswept. He smiled, relieved, and Will realized that Hannibal had been standing pin-straight at the door while he waited. Hannibal put a hand on the door to push it open wider; Will had only opened it a few inches, enough to confirm that it was him.

Blearily, Will looked over his shoulder and confirmed that outside it was deep nighttime. He had never before missed dinner with Hannibal without calling ahead, and he only called ahead on the most pressing occasions. If he weren’t so clammy, he might have flushed. “Oh.”

“You didn’t answer the phone, and Jack usually leaves you to your devices on Saturdays.” When Will turned back to look at Hannibal, his mouth had turned downwards into a look of soft concern. “May I come in?”

“Yes. I must have fallen asleep.”

Will backed out of the doorway and allowed Hannibal to pass by him. He scrubbed a hand over his chin and neck, grimacing at the feeling of stubble below his jaw. Hannibal was subtle about it, to his credit, but Will could hear him sniffing, and caught the twitch of revulsion at the corner of his mouth.

“Are you becoming ill?” he asked, lingering on the dark rings below Will’s eyes.

Shutting the door, Will weakly cracked, “More and more every day, Hannibal.”

This was the wrong answer, evidently, because Hannibal took a step towards him and held out a hand as though to take the temperature of Will’s forehead. He shied away. Disoriented, he found himself with his back against the metal door.

“I’m fine. I’ve been drinking water. I got motion sickness from the public transportation.” His voice croaked with the effort of sounding healthy.

Hannibal looked at him beseechingly. “For my benefit if not for yours. Often times, one cannot tell from within whether a fever has taken hold.”

He relented. Hannibal pushed aside the shaggy hair hanging in front of his eyes, tested Will's skin with the back of his 0hand. Hannibal’s skin was cooler than his; maybe he was running a fever. A memory struck him painfully, of his mother taking his temperature with her lips when he had been sick. He would have been so young, only five or six at the oldest when she died; he hadn’t known himself to retain memories from that time.

Hannibal brushed Will’s bangs back into order. “You were correct,” he admitted, hand drifting down to Will’s neck. “No fever.”

His thumb sat against the stubbled underside of his jaw, his fingers, over the top of Will’s carotid artery. Testing his pulse, as though Will wouldn’t notice. He wished for complete control over his body, to prevent Hannibal from feeling Will’s heart against his fingers.

His voice touched him as delicately as his hands. “You look exhausted.”

“I am exhausted. Wouldn’t you be?” Will tried to smile, but he could tell he was only wincing, and stopped. “I can’t rest easy. I’d forgotten how clamorous my head could be.”

“And you are so attuned to noise. Baltimore must make you suffer.”

Hannibal stepped back to afford Will greater breathing room. Will wished that he was being held up, even as he propped his weight against the door behind him. The urge to sleep was attempting to drag him to the center of the earth. He forced his eyes to stay open, or at least to blink often. This was the spirit of all of those nights of poor sleep, come to take revenge on him. This was the feeling which took him at the end of a grueling case.

“It always seemed logical to me that, if I suffered enough, I could reward myself with a quiet life afterwards.”

Will tracked Hannibal as he sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs, then mustered his strength to sit on the edge of his bed. Concern still bright on his face, Hannibal asked, “Do you miss your home?”

“God, constantly. I miss real grass. My dogs. There’s this taste to the air when you go out into the fields, like… unripened wheat.” He laughed, blinking slowly. “I don’t know if you’d like it. It’s rustic out there.”

“I would like the novelty of it," Hannibal insisted, "and the continued pleasure of your company.”

Will smiled. “I miss you already.”

When Hannibal roused him with a hand on his shoulder, the thought occurred to Will, stickily and with unusual effort, that he must have fallen halfway into sleep. He muttered an apology, though once it left his mouth he could not tell what words he had used. Hannibal shushed him and stroked his hair.

“Would you come tomorrow?” Will had to tilt his chin high to look at Hannibal’s face.

“Yes,” he breathed. For a moment, he existed only on that breath.

Hannibal took a knee and undid the laces of Will’s shoes so that he could kick them off. A shiver kissed cold up Will’s back. Hannibal suggested that he remove his jacket as well.

“I can do this myself, you know.”

“Of course. I simply have a feeling that you won’t undress for bed if you don’t have to.”

“Not while I’m on business. I don’t even sleep under the covers. Don’t like to get familiar with them.”

He had taken his jacket off, though, and it took his brain several seconds of furious churning to decide that he shouldn’t undo his button-down shirt for as long as Hannibal was there with him. Hannibal’s expression was unreadable- or maybe Will was really that tired. He climbed to his feet and draped Will’s jacket across the table.

“This isn’t business. I want you to be rested tomorrow, so you must try to get abnormally good sleep.”

Will snorted and closed his eyes, shuffling into an apt sleeping position. “What’s tomorrow?”

Hannibal did not answer him in so many words, but his weight depressed the edge of the stiff mattress. “Arrive early.”

His hand brushed over Will’s bangs again, came to rest, cradling his cheek. If his body hadn’t been sinking so quickly, he would have opened his eyes. Steal one last look before he hit the silty floor.

\-----

Will could scarcely remember the last time that waking up had felt simply like opening his eyes. If he had dreamt, the contents of his dreams evaporated the instant he woke. He wasn’t sure if the previous night’s conversation with Hannibal had, itself, been just a dream, until he noted that his shoes were off, and a scrap of paper had been left on the table covered in Hannibal’s perfect, nearly calligraphic lettering, torn from an empty page of Will’s steno pad.

Hannibal had maintained his stance that Will should arrive early, as early as it suited him. Will wasn’t sure what he expected to feel. Trepidation perhaps, or anguish; anything but the well-rested calm that had arrived to him.

As absurd as it was, he could not help but feel that Hannibal knew. Something in his face must have given him away. He had been so vulnerable the night before, it would be an insult to Hannibal to assume that he didn’t know.

It would be better like that. Will ran a hand through his hair, a little sweat-dampened and out of sorts from sleep, and chuckled to himself. If Hannibal knew, he’d have the good sense to leave. This could all end painlessly. If Will didn’t come to dinner, Hannibal would disappear, wouldn’t he?

“Jesus,” he muttered, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. “Worse than fucking Hamlet.”

As always, the choice came down to which sin he could live with the longest.

He retrieved his gun belt from his suitcase, where it had sat untouched since his arrival. They had only re-approved him for a firearms qualification a handful of months ago; after Seattle, he could not so much as look at another agent’s glock without arousing suspicion. If this didn’t restore the general faith in him, he didn’t know what would.

It would be nice to go home after all of this, he assured himself. This was enough to earn him his quiet life.

He sat at the table and flipped through his files several times through, just to pretend to be doing something. He did not actually read them, and he did not need to because he had them all but memorized. The afternoon was not deep enough for him to come to Hannibal’s house yet. Hannibal would be pleased, no doubt, but he wasn’t ready.

He pushed the files away. None of this would be enough. His body carried him to the bathroom to wash up, change clothes, before it strapped on his gun belt and grabbed a pair of steel cuffs. 

During the investigation, they had rarely visited the sites of the older killings. Any evidence had departed long ago with the weather, so there was little to be gained from them that he could not gather from maps and statistics. Will took the elevator to the upper city, and one by one he visited each scene, stood where Hannibal must have stood, and breathed in, as though he could catch the scent lingering.

His senses did him one better, when he let his gaze drift. He could nearly see him. It seemed that the crime scenes remembered all things which had come to pass on their grounds, and had chosen to tell him their secrets at last. When he appeared, he posed the corpses lovingly, with the delicate affection a master has for his craft. In every vision his brain supplied, he was something ineffable. Will marked the sites mentally as he visited, and connected them until the map of Baltimore in his head was painted with whatever sigil gave Hannibal his power.

He found himself at Abbot’s home when the sun began to disappear. The yellow tape had not yet been taken down, but he was taken back by the sight of red graffiti across the facade. Someone from the lower city must have managed their way up; he doubted anybody at this altitude felt strongly enough about murders in the slums to take it out on the murderer’s perfectly good house. He tried the front door and found it locked, as he expected.

It only took a minute or so to convince the front window to open. Whoever the vandals had been, they had not stayed long enough to break into the house. The furniture hadn’t been repossessed by the city either. He tried to turn on the lights, but the power had long been shut off, leaving him in darkness save for mellow, fading sunlight. There was a feeling as though the house had been embalmed, rather than begin to decay as neglected houses did. He scrubbed a finger over a ledge in the wall and it came away gritty with dust; a shudder of revulsion went through him, looking at it through Thomas Abbot’s eyes.

For how long would Hannibal have kept Abbot as a protege, if not for him? Will wiped his hand off on his jacket and felt the outline of the handcuffs in his pocket. Probably only as long as it took to find somebody more interesting. He doubted the wait would have been long.

The slanted orange light filtering through the blinds turned dusky and vanished. He blinked at the window, missing the sun’s warmth like bedsheets tugged away too early, and checked his phone. Past time for him to go to Hannibal. How long would it take for him to find somebody more interesting than Will?

He muttered to himself, fixed on the blue evening outside, “For ever and ever.”

The sky had settled into overcast darkness when he reached Hannibal’s home. In the seconds between his knock and the opening of the door, he glanced upwards and twisted his mouth. He never checked the forecast anymore, but the air tasted like rain.

Hannibal answered the door in a white apron, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and a hand-towel hanging over his shoulder. Will heard the first splashes of rain on the pavement before he felt a fat drop hit his head, and Hannibal, eyes soft and warm with affection, silently moved aside to let him in.

“I nearly called to see if you were not recovered. Your exhaustion last night has been on my mind since I returned home.” Will dropped his gaze for a moment, an ache in the pit of his stomach.

Shutting the door, he glanced up and down Will, and emitted a soft, comprehending ‘ah.’

“You’re wearing your gun,” Hannibal noted lightly.

Will mimicked his tone, “Carrying handcuffs, too.”

The pause which followed was unusually tense. Hannibal extended his hand to take Will’s jacket. In a gesture of good faith, Will slipped out of it and handed it off; without it, his gun belt was completely exposed. It was too warm to wear anyway.

“Am I ready to know the surprise yet?” He picked at the tail of a thread hanging on the cuff of his flannel. Indulgently, Hannibal smiled and beckoned him towards the kitchen.

“Only if you will promise to enjoy it.”

Hannibal seemed to be in the midst of preparing dinner- he had left a pot on the stove, and the oven was lit- and if Will trusted his nose, it was nearly finished. He raised his eyebrows. Hannibal’s hand rested against Will’s elbow, the touch somehow intimate.

“I hadn’t wanted to begin without you. It was my hope that you would join me in not just the dining, but the preparation. As with all consummation, the experience is elevated when you have worked for it.”

Will sighed. “I hope I haven’t spoiled the evening. Lost track of time.”

Hannibal moved, leading him with his light touch. “Hardly spoiled. Even if I had already finished, we would always have another opportunity. As it is, we have time left before the meal is served, and I would like you to try something.”

He explained that the night’s dish was Greek, and thus Will was charged with making tzatziki for the side while Hannibal saw to the rest of the plate.

Will watched Hannibal out of the corner of his eye, quickly slicing small red onions for a salad. Anxious wasn’t the right word. It didn’t quite seem real, being invited into the kitchen, allowed to touch his knives and utensils, his food, which he knew Hannibal prized, with a glock holstered on his hip.

Time disappeared while he stood at the cutting board, awkwardly wielding the vegetable peeler against a cucumber. He listened to Hannibal moving around the kitchen, moving in and out of his periphery.

By the time he was ready to take the knife to the thing, he was sure Hannibal could have had the whole spread finished if he had done this on his own. The gun was too damn heavy. Will swallowed, and his throat was dry and sticky.

“It’s terrible, the things we can feel for a person we hardly know.”

Hannibal made an appreciative hum. “I would argue, even more terrible are the things we are capable of feeling once we do know one another.”

Will stared at the cutting board and did not reply. He had expected something more, he figured. At the very least, some kind of denial. Some show of being cornered. Will turned his head and flickered his eyes towards him where he stood before the stovetop, and he looked as radiant as ever. There was some special aura about him in this place. He might have had it forever, and Will’s eyes had only now learned to see its frequency. It was like learning a new color.

“You’re staring,” Hannibal teased.

“I am. I keep thinking this will be easier to understand, the more I look at you.”

“Is it?”

Turning back to the knife and board and the very poor process he was making with the cucumber, he said, “No.”

“How well do you think you know me, Will?”

“Better than I think I want to.”

Hannibal turned the stove off and transferred the pot to a cold burner, still stirring. “Certainly better than anyone else, by my estimation. You are capable of seeing every facet I have to offer; and eventually, I would like you to.” He offered him the end of the wooden spoon, a bit of the cooking liquid held in the divot. “Would you taste for me?”

“Do you say that often to your patients?” Will could not keep the bitterness out of his voice, but he accepted. The texture was liquid velvet, and he closed his eyes for a moment.

“I’ve never said that to a patient,” Hannibal replied with irritating self-awareness. “I don’t cook for them, nor with them, to maintain a professional distance. How do you find it?”

Will nodded, eyes aimed just beyond Hannibal’s shoulder. “Good.”

Hannibal tasted for himself from the same spoonful. “I am always glad to hear that my tastes are shared.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. We don’t taste with the same tongue; I’m sure there are lots of things you enjoy which I would find unpalatable.” 

“Your variety is part of what makes you so endearing. You shouldn’t hold the knife like that.”

He glanced down at his knife hand, brows furrowed skeptically. “How should I hold it?”

Hannibal had moved around to his other side before he could raise his head again. The steps were inaudible, and the only indications Will had of his movement were the soft rustle of fabric and the animal instinct for knowing when something was approaching him from behind. He unconsciously tensed and arched away at the sensation of something dangerous at his back. Hannibal’s hand came to hover over his.

“May I?”

The pale aura touched his skin like sunlight. “Feel free.”

Separating Will’s fingers from the knife, Hannibal adjusted his grip so that his forefinger no longer sat along the back of the blade, but pinched the flat of the knife against his thumb. His other hand was reshaped into a modified claw to hold the cucumber so that his fingertips were out of the way. He rocked the knife slowly, a light, guiding touch on his wrist all the while.

“How long did you think this would go on for, Hannibal?”

“Until its natural conclusion became apparent. That was entirely dependent on you. I have a weakness for instant gratification, but I didn’t want to upset things. You had to learn on your own.”

The knife clicked against the cutting board, made a fleshy, slick sound through the vegetable. He set to chopping up the slices and scraping the cubes into a bowl. There was perhaps an inch of space between them. As subtly as he could, Hannibal breathed in the scent of his hair and of the delicate nape of his neck- perhaps less than an inch, Will thought. The high-strung feeling between his shoulder blades tightened.

“And if someone else reached the same conclusion that I did, would you have them for dinner?”

“No, Will. I’m having you for dinner.” Hannibal gave his wrist a light squeeze, almost playful. “Anyone else, I would eat.”

Against his better judgment, Will scoffed at that, close enough to a laugh. Some of the tension leaked out of him. This was all too much to handle without a sense of humor. “What did I ever do to warrant this kind of exceptional treatment?”

Hannibal seemed to approve- Will could hear the pride in his voice when he murmured back, “You’ve spent several weeks profiling me; with your gifts, I’m sure you must have a theory.”

“It’s difficult," Will said, tilting his head away but still smiling. "I keep such stark divisions in my mind between you and him. Trying to unite your parts feels like I’m either betraying the version of you that I know, or giving the version I don’t know more credit than he deserves. I think I’m still half numb to it.”

“You’re evading, Will, and not very subtly.”

“Oh yes, because you’ve always been a beacon of subtlety. ’To the Ripper.’” He snorted. He had long finished chopping, and he set down his knife so he could angle his body to get a better look at Hannibal. Still so soft and so bright, practically blinding at this proximity.

When Hannibal said nothing, did not even have the decency to look abashed, Will continued, a bit more sober, “You’ve been bored for a long time, playing the natural stakes. Not much challenge there. It’s just enough to keep you entertained. It’s lonely at the top of the food chain, so now and then you engineer an apostle for yourself, to keep your hands busy. Then you heard about me, and about the condition of my head, and thought I would be… fulfilling. But I won’t be. There’s nothing you can take to fill yourself up with.”

“I am not interested in taking from you. In fact, I only want to build you up.”

“What would you know about building anything? You’re the adversary in a nice suit. The only thing you could ever create is a lesser version of yourself, and destruction is part of your sense of humor, it comes more easily.”

Once out of his mouth, the words were not as biting as he had hoped; this would be counted among all the hundreds of other things he did and said hollowly. Hannibal backed up a half-step, enough for Will to turn and face him. Their hands touched lightly, not quite clasped, but tethered by the invisible strings around their little fingers.

“Perhaps I take after my father in that regard. God’s own favorite creations were made in his image as well.” It was impossible to tell if he was speaking in analogy anymore.

In spite of himself, Will turned his hand over so that their fingers could weave together. “And look what a mistake that was.”

They came to a long impasse. Will didn’t want to breathe, and risk marking the seconds as they passed. The world was ending in slow motion. He dug his fingers in the thick dirt and the gravel, to root himself in place against the unforgiving drag of time. He thought of how it would feel to go back into the past and stop himself from ever speaking to Chilton, permitting himself however many more days of unfettered happiness that he now had to give up.

Hannibal was the first to break through the film that had formed over them. He lifted up their hands and moved slightly forward, as in the beginning of a waltz. “The food should not stand unattended so long, Will.”

“The food,” Will repeated dumbly, nodding. Something occurred to him, and he started laughing, horrified, pulled away his hand to press it to his brow. He leaned back against the counter. “Jesus Christ. I hardly thought twice about the fact that you could serve flesh every night. I didn’t think about the cost; it seemed so natural, coming from you, that I refused to see it. Anyone else would assume you only buy for special occasions. It’s so obvious. Word magic. And all this time, no one has ever looked into your purchases, have they? Verified the receipts.”

“My one worldly fear is to be audited,” Hannibal confided, delivering it like a punchline.

All the numbness washed away at once, but he kept laughing, all breath and no voice, an uncontrollable reflex. “You know that I have to arrest you. Or kill you, or... You know I can’t let you stay here, like this.”

“I would argue otherwise; I am giving you a host of more pleasant options than those your imagination conjures up. Were you not the one who found it tedious to resign himself to his work?”

“It would be one thing to quit my job and take my pension and go back to fixing boat engines, and entirely another to--” Will cut himself off. “Is there any way I can convince you to leave? Leave quietly? Something easy on my conscience, for once.”

Hannibal offered his hand, and Will deeply resented that he could look so serene at a time like this, as though he’d done this a dozen times before. Gently, he said, “We ought to talk about this at dinner. Things are rarely so bleak as they seem on an empty stomach.”

“How do you think you’re going to spin this to me, Hannibal?” Will took his hand anyway. His fingers held Hannibal about the wrist, and Hannibal did the same to him.

“I have never lied to you, except by omission, and only within reason. I thought that would be harmless enough. Your sense of understanding is exceptional; please exercise it in my favor at the very least one last time.”

“At dinner, I’ll be understanding,” Will promised, “and after dinner, if you’re still here, I’ll arrest you.”

An alarm chimed on the stove, and Hannibal ignored it. He seemed delighted at the prospect. “Even criminals are given more than a single evening to defend themselves.”

“You aren’t a criminal. You’re the devil. If you can sentence a man to death in half a minute, so can I.”

Hannibal’s smile became an outright beam, like a child’s. “And yet you claim not to share my tastes.”

The alarm returned insistently, and as one they turned to look at the stove. Hannibal covered Will’s hand with his free hand. “Perhaps we should address one thing at a time. We can’t have dinner until we make it.”

“I’m sorry I’m not a very good cook. Never finished the tzatziki.”

“You have a lot on your mind. Creating anything worthwhile requires your singular attention be put to it. That is something I could teach you to do.”

Will stepped to the side, though he did not let go. “I’ll consider that as part of your appeal.”

They traded places, and the mirrored movement of their feet really did feel to Will as though they were dancing. He turned off the timer. Hannibal took his place at the counter. However, his focus was trained on Will, and not on his task.

“I wish you would have permitted me to sketch you. If I were limited to recreating only one piece of art, it would be you, as you are at this moment, and I would never want for entertainment.”

\-----

Hannibal had laid out one of his table settings, as usual, but all the same they opted to take dinner in the kitchen. Will leaned heavily on the counter, resting on his forearm, and Hannibal stood opposite, still dressed down and with his arms exposed. He was not nearly as hunched as Will, but his body was angled towards him. They both drank from matching goblets of a very good red, heady and appropriate for the dish.

Conversation had begun normally enough, the entire conflict set aside for the moment. Tonight seemed to be a night for questions from Hannibal’s end, and he engaged his curiosity between small, polite bites of braised shoulder. It made sense to Will- if this was to be their last night, Hannibal would want to suck all the marrow out, to keep the taste lingering longer. He already knew more than any of Will’s friends about the details of his fish-stinking, gasoline powered childhood, so there was little embarrassment in confiding in him even now. 

(By comparison, Will did not know nearly so much of the cryptic early life of Hannibal. He could say for sure that Hannibal had been born and lived for years in Lithuania; that he became an orphan quite young; that he had once had a little sister, long since dead. Will wanted to know, of course, but he had always counted on Hannibal telling him on his own time. Perhaps, he thought ruefully, Hannibal would not begrudge him too much, that he would give him some version of the story after he had been arrested. Will doubted it.)

Will didn’t eat much, trying to wait for his stomach to settle. Hannibal had bought fresh pita, and Will spread tzatziki on it and ate that while he avoided the meat.

“What do you remember of your mother, Will?” Hannibal inquired.

Finding himself in a belligerent sort of mood, he answered, “What do you remember of your sister?”

Hannibal took a moment of consideration. He glanced away involuntarily, and so Will knew he was about to hear god’s truth. “Very much. Practically all of it. My early childhood contains some of my clearest memories, though I have a tendency to look back on them in the third person, as a stranger. The clarity ends where Mischa does. I used to wonder if the memories I have were hers.”

Will’s chest constricted. “Thank you,” he murmured. “What I kept of my mother is all in feelings. But then again, as a person, I don’t lend myself well to clarity.”

“Don’t think of it as a shortcoming. We’re meant to forget our childhoods.”

“There was this,” Will involuntarily dropped his voice, “silence, when she was gone. We would forget to run the generator without her, and get freezing cold. A couple of dysfunctional men in a mobile home; my father didn’t like to waste money on the heat, anyway.”

Hannibal speared a delicately cut cube of meat on his fork, and because Will had yet declined to taste it for himself, his imagination ran wild with the bliss that came over Hannibal’s face as he chewed. Will chased down a mouthful of dry pita with a mouthful of dry red.

Hannibal swallowed and asked, hardly bothering to feign curiosity, “And were you satisfied then, with such a quiet life? Had you not developed the appropriate palate for it, do you think?”

Will derailed the conversation before Hannibal’s train of thought could take him anywhere meaningful, saying, “I know I’m making slow progress with my food, but I’ll finish it eventually, and you can’t afford to waste this time to defend yourself.”

He cocked his head, annoyingly self-aware, very nearly parodying himself.

“The fact of the matter is, it does you no good to kill me or arrest me. One could argue that my extracurriculars are a benefit to society at large, in much the same way as the lottery.”

Will looked unimpressed, and tore a triangle of pita in half. “One could, yes, but I wouldn’t.”

“And why not?” Hannibal set his fork down on his plate and steepled his fingers in mock seriousness. “You of all people should know the limits of the law, its failings. My method is more swift and more surefire.”

“Not all of your victims are criminals,” he shot back.

“Neither are all of the victims of the law. As the law does, I target nuisances. I perform the same function as that ever fallible monolith which you live to serve, only on a different scale, and with greater accuracy.”

“Hannibal, do me the credit not to argue something you don’t believe, as though I’m that easily convinced.”

Will picked up his fork and started nudging the food around on his plate, as he tended to do when he was working up the strength for his first bite. With a careful smile, Hannibal had the grace to brush off Will’s surliness. 

“I do credit you; in fact, I hold you in the highest regard, which is why I wish that you do not mistake me. Although I take a special annoyance to pederasts, vigilantism is obviously not my raison d’etre. I make the point to you because I believe it could be yours.”

When Will said nothing, despite his best efforts to the contrary, Hannibal picked up his own fork again. He did not use it, but held it patiently, as one holds a calligraphy brush.

“You called me the devil before,” he continued, as though flattered by such a high remark. “The devil, satan, is but one part of a whole. He is the Adversary, but the adversary to man, not, as the ignorant believe, to God. Man fears the wrath of God, if only out of a limited capacity for the awe He deserves, and the devil is his lance-arm. He loves God unfathomably. He is the first and ultimate devotee. Without God the beast may enjoy free reign, but all that he does amounts to entertainment, and means nothing. Mindless, and unchallenging entertainment.”

Will had seemingly given up on his meal, but had spread its components liberally around the plate while he listened. At last, he muttered, “I wasn’t aware that the devil needed to have purpose. I take it for granted that he simply is. Like god.”

“Well, when you’re of divine size, you choose your own purpose. Inevitably, God and the devil always choose each other.”

“Why do they do that?” Will’s voice had become so small he almost didn’t recognize it. He wanted to clear his throat and try again, but he pursed his lips tightly instead.

Hannibal’s fork made a soft clink against the plate, prompting Will to look up at him, brow deeply furrowed in consternation. He wanted to throw the fucking fine china against the wall and scream himself numb and hoarse and gut Hannibal and gut himself and bleed and purge himself- and god, he had thought it had been a burden to be empty, but it was hell to be full. He pressed his hand over his eyes and took a few deep breaths.

As usual, Hannibal’s footsteps were silent, but Will tracked his movement by instinct rather than sense. He had moved around the island to hover a foot away.

“Because they are equals, and to be alone after making such a match is unbearable. Particularly for the devil.”

Will laughed voicelessly, hand still clasped to his eyes. “Please. Particularly for god. The devil has entertainment; god doesn’t know how to be happy with anything.”

The weight of Hannibal’s hand appeared on his shoulder. With another silent laugh, Will let his hand fall away from his face, and turned to look at him, that radiant beast, and realized that he had made a liar of himself again. He tried to crush involuntary thoughts of the happiness found in Hannibal’s sitting room.

“If God creates a stone too heavy for Him to lift, that is why He has the Adversary to take half of its weight.”

Will straightened. Hannibal moved his hand to the tender curve of Will’s neck; Will saw his eyes deliberately and slowly sweep down his face and chest. He felt seared under the scrutiny, however loving it was.

“You’re buttering me up, comparing me to god. They do say the devil knows his scripture.” Hannibal’s thumb caressed the stubbled ridge of his jaw, and he swallowed. “Would god let himself be crushed, under that inconceivable stone?”

Hannibal considered his words for a moment, admitting, “I don’t know. God is proud, but occasionally difficult to predict.”

“Let’s consider for a moment that I’m not him. What would it mean for me if I said yes?”

He was sure Hannibal could not have looked more elated even if Will had acquiesced outright. His stomach bottomed out in his abdomen.

“Wholeness.” Hannibal stepped closer. “You would have a home in me, and I in you. We will look into one another’s true faces, and know our true names. You need never deny yourself anything that you want, as I do not. You will be happy.”

Taking a breath, Will muttered to himself, “Happy.”

Will’s brain did a thousand things at once. In the span of a few moments he erased and created lives upon lives for himself, looking for an excuse to be happy after Hannibal was gone. He recoiled from the idea that he could come up empty. What if this was some trick? What if it was not?

“This could be a gift, Will, if you only take it. Let me shoulder half the weight, and we will be to one another as incomparable entertainment.”

He tried to think of friends. Certainly, he had friends beyond this room. If not, at least he had acquaintances. He had co-workers. Jack, who kept him like a favorite hound, ready to put him down at the first sign he would bite. Zeller and Price, who did not speak to each other while he was in the room with them. Beverly, who had been promoted and since left the department. Alana, who...

Nevermind. He could have them in the future, and lovers, girlfriends, children; there would be people in his life he did not poison with touch, who could put faith in him without reservation. His heart was beating ungodly fast- heart attack, something in his brain unhelpfully and inaccurately supplied- and he wanted to press a hand to his chest hard enough to make it stop altogether.

It wouldn’t be enough. The thought was terrible and he didn’t want it, but it refused to be dislodged. Hannibal was right. Nobody else would be able to give him what he did. Who else would want to? Hannibal already had faith in him.

Low and soothing, Hannibal told him it would be alright. He must have felt Will’s heart. He brushed Will’s hair off of his forehead and put his lips there, as though to test for fever again. Warmth flashed through him. How else was he supposed to be content, but by this? He tried to speak but the words stuck to his throat and he blinked dumbly as he watched Hannibal tilt his head down until their mouths hovered just a hair apart.

Until Hannibal’s lower lip brushed against his, Will hadn’t considered how long it had been since he had done this. It didn’t feel bad, only strange. Celibate years, isolated years, ended abruptly with Hannibal’s mouth, as so many things seemed to do. He wondered if he ought to be too old for a kiss to feel new.

He pushed into it, a hand reaching up to touch Hannibal’s jaw, where he could feel light and uneven stubble in that place which he often missed shaving. Their lips slotted together; Hannibal stepped in closer and put his arm around Will’s waist so that their bodies could do the same. Will felt clumsy and unwieldy, so present in his own body that it was almost painful, while by contrast Hannibal’s lips moved gracefully on his. A light puff of breath touched his cheek. The kiss tasted like red wine.

He must have felt so rough. His lips were so dry. He had not shaved or trimmed in so long. His hair must be wiry and his skin coarse, and his bones, not delicate enough to warrant the care Hannibal took with his hands.

Hannibal’s hands-- they were tight on his hips, and their bodies had turned now so that the countertop dug into the small of his back. Their mouths parted. His heart had not slowed, but rather than panic, the frenetic thrum under his ribs was the giddiness of exercise. Hannibal rested his forehead against Will’s, his nose against its counterpart, and if Will had not heard his shuddering exhale, he felt it.

“You are a marvel,” he whispered, strained. Will opened his eyes- he nearly had to cross his eyes to focus on Hannibal’s face- to find that Hannibal’s were still shut. He swept his thumb over the exaggerated swell of Hannibal’s cheekbone.

“Are you crying?” Will asked, though that had not been what he had meant to say.

Hannibal leaned down so that their faces pressed cheek to cheek; Will could feel his smile. “Not yet. It’s a near thing.”

“I know what you mean.”

Hannibal’s hands departed his hips, and a growling, starving thing camped in his brain wondered where they would go next. If he had been perhaps more distracted, he would have overlooked the feeling of his gun being taken out of its holster. He supposed he should have been more afraid. As it was, he was too warm to feel the chill of fear, and if he stalled, it was in indecision.

“Hannibal?” The smile had not faded from Hannibal’s face, he could tell.

Behind his back, Hannibal was hefting the glock curiously. “Did you ever intend to use this tonight, or was it simply moral support? Be honest.”

Will whispered, as honestly as he could, “I didn’t want to, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You are a more complicated animal than that, Will; what you want and what you do are practically unrelated.” The gun clattered loudly on the countertop, almost loudly enough to make Will flinch. He made a quiet, involuntary noise on the exhale. Hannibal bumped his lips into the corner of Will’s jaw. “Betraying yourself is no way to live.”

Hannibal paused, to allow him to decide whether or not he would be a coward. But, of all the sins he could commit from that moment onwards, Will realized, cowardice would be the one he could live with the least.

“There’s no bullets in it,” he admitted. “I thought if I could… I don’t know, spook you, that you’d fly the coop and I could pretend that I did the halfway right thing. No fooling you, though.”

“I forgive you, Will.”

“I’m sorry.” He squeezed his eyes shut and held to the back of Hannibal’s neck. Supple lips closed over the tender point of his pulse.

Hannibal shushed him in between taking lingering tastes of his skin. Shivers and goose flesh prickled down his back. Since when had his body been so alive?

“I never wanted to be…” Will straightened his leg, fighting a tremble in his knee. The word ‘happy’ formed in his mind, and instead his mouth said, “Selfish.”

That, at least, made Hannibal pause. He took a breath of Will’s hair. “How unlucky for you, that to live is to be selfish. Merely surviving cannot satisfy men like ourselves.”

“I wanted--”

“I understand completely. But you deserve to be selfish.”

Will relaxed by measures until he was held up practically more by Hannibal and the counter than his own legs beneath him. “Of course you understand,” he said with palpable relief. His hand guided Hannibal back up to kiss him properly. “Aren’t we just alike?”

Hannibal bit down on his lip just sharply enough to sting, to make him gasp. When he checked, Hannibal’s smile curled upwards, playfully. A love bite.

“It’s as you said: it’s lonely at the top of the food chain. And, if you refuse to eat what nature provides, it is a hungry place too. Would you permit me to cater to your appetite?”

He ran his tongue over his lip, which tingled from the little bite. “Yes. All of them. I want to taste my food again.”

Kissing Hannibal had already been a unique experience, but now Hannibal kissed him so passionately, single-mindedly, as he had never felt before. The thought rang in his head that he would be eaten alive right there, and he would accept it. He reached behind himself, pushing the dinner plates away with a porcelain scrape. Hannibal intuited his wants and helped him hoist himself up to sit on the counter. 

His back bumped into his half-full wine glass, but Hannibal deftly caught it before it could topple over, so that only a bit sloshed out onto the counter. They didn’t pay it any mind. Hannibal pulled back for just a second to lick up a splash of wine that had ended up on his fingers, and just as soon returned to stealing Will’s breath and body.

Love was good if he allowed it to be. Fullness was good. He hated himself for almost giving up his last chance at a satisfying life. His stomach lurched, as much at an uncomfortable realization as the unfamiliar feeling of a heavy touch on his inner thigh. How quickly this could be spoiled.

“Wait,” he murmured against Hannibal’s lips. He pushed lightly, with just his fingertips, and Hannibal yielded to his touch, moving back a scant few inches. “I know where we should begin.”

Intrigued, Hannibal tilted his head.

“I’m not the only one who knows. Our first order of business should be rectifying that.”

\-----

From a distance, it looked like a lynching. There was something inherently humiliating about a hanging death. Still, he made an attractive corpse, in his own right an Ophelia. His skin was hardly discolored, despite his body being strung up for so long; if anything, he looked pale. It made sense; for one thing, he had been dead for a while before they had hoisted his body to the top of the light post, and for another, out of necessity they had drained much of his blood. He was totally clean. Even his suit was funeral-ready.

Jack looked up in disquiet. It was jarring to see someone go from life to death with such velocity. Frederick Chilton had made more of a reputation for himself at cheating death than he had as a psychiatrist. His latest hurtle towards the grave had not been so lucky as to miss.

His face was worse than the bulging vertebrae in his neck, or the creaking rope, or his blistered fingers and chipped nails. His face was empty, and that was perhaps the most horrific part of it. His eyes had been plucked out, his brain pulled through his nose, and even his tongue stolen. In their place, as though to compensate for his spotless corpse, his face had been filled with blooming red tulips. They burst out of his mouth and his eye sockets, their stems forced down his throat, through his sinuses, twined together in every emptied cavern.

The street was cordoned off, blocking pedestrians, who milled around outside the barriers with that familiar fascination. The local police had wanted to cut Chilton down, give them less to ogle at, but the medical examiner refused to let the scene be disturbed yet. Crowd or not, they needed photographs.

There was no death-reek. The air on the street smelled like corrosion and distant cigarette smoke. If you came close enough to the hanging man, you could smell his cologne.

A red satin ribbon had been tied in a neat knot around his tie clip. It was an amorous package done up exactly as he had instructed ante-mortem. Will found that somehow especially gratifying.

“Another Ripper victim,” he fibbed. He couldn’t wait until Chilton was brought in for his autopsy, and they would find the surprise.

“And Dr. Chilton didn’t tell you the name of whomever he suspected to be our killer?” Jack had hardly leveled him a glance since they stepped onto the scene. He just kept staring at the body, waiting for it to rat on his executioner.

Will shook his head and made a noise.

“How did he know?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe Frederick wasn’t as tight lipped as I thought. Narcissists don’t have very good self-preservation skills. Either way, even if we don’t know the ‘how,’ we definitely know the ‘why.’”

Jack looked at him dead-on, brows raised.

“Red tulips tied with a red string.” Will shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “It’s a bouquet. It’s a love confession.”

The medical examiner concluded taking pictures. The police untied the rope suspending Chilton’s body and lowered him onto the ground. Will took a deep breath through his nose and did his damnedest not to smile at the warmth lingering under his skin, his own heart an overworked furnace. “The Ripper isn’t alone anymore. He’s found God.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having made the embarrassing mistake of being born human, I require funds. As a full-time university student, I have a part-time job, but I also seek to supplement my income, and exercise my favorite hobby, with writing commissions. If you like my writing, and you want to have a piece of it custom made for you (in a variety of fandoms, or even for your own OCs), my commission information can be found [ here](http://godstrumpet.tumblr.com/post/135306444728/i-am-aubergine-also-known-as-ao3-user).
> 
> Once again, thank you all for sticking with me. I know I can be standoffish at times, but appreciate and love every one of you.


	4. Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was hard. 
> 
> I am not the same guy that I was when I first started writing this story, nearly 2 years ago. His vision is hard to reconcile with mine, and I am more inclined to favor myself over him. I considered abandoning this project whole cloth when I realized this incompatibility, but it would have been cowardly, not to mention disappointing for anyone who has been earnestly waiting for me to finish.
> 
> This may not be the ending you wanted. I don't know if this is the ending I wanted. There comes a point in the chapter where the segment break is made up of asterisks instead of dashes. If you reach that point, and you like that ending, then I encourage you to take it; it is just as real as my ending, which is the ending I do not want but felt I must have. This probably says an unfortunate amount about me personally. But what do I know.
> 
> I thank all of you so much for your readership, your continued indulgence in me, your comments and patronage. You have been good to me.
> 
> Well. Let's finish this.

“Are you sure?”

Will blinked quickly twice, and jerked his head to look at Jack again. The man still wouldn’t look at him, the tight-lipped bastard. Will narrowed his eyes- the ingratitude and audacity not to pay attention still, after all of this, not to give him his dues.

“Am I sure of what, Jack?”

Jack quietly made a noise like he was scolding himself. “I know I shouldn’t doubt you; I don’t ask you to come all the way out here for me to doubt you. But Will. Are you sure this was our man?”

“It might as well be,” he insisted. “That’s the only kind of connection the Ripper could be satisfied with.”

But Jack shook his head. Will’s back tightened up in knots where he stood. Bile rose up in his throat like rank fear. That wouldn’t do, he said to himself in Hannibal’s voice, coaching himself back down from the edge; everything was still under control. There was no need to jump to hasty conclusions about what Jack might or might not have thought in passing. He tried to make his voice sound casual.

“What makes you so sure it’s not the Ripper?”

“You don’t have a monopoly on gut feelings.” Jack finally let his eyes roll over to point at Will. “The whole thing isn’t right. It’s the ring we’re in. His whole career, he’s never left the topmost tier to kill someone, and if he has, he’s never advertised it like this. And it’s so personal; it’s not petty, it’s hatred. Whoever killed Dr. Chilton wanted to destroy him.”

Will suggested, “Maybe we should accept when the profile is inaccurate, instead of depending on it. Maybe the Ripper isn’t ordinary enough to profile.”

Jack gave that statement some breathing room. Something occurred to him, and he looked back over his shoulder, asking, “Where’s Hannibal? I would have thought he’d be here, if you were.”

Will smiled despite himself. “Is he my chaperon?”

“I won’t insult you by pretending I haven’t asked him to keep an eye on you, but it seems like you’re attached at the hip. You, uh, eat together too often for me not to speculate.”

“Have you been looking at my bank statements? I would have told you myself if you asked.”

They were covering Chilton’s body up with a plastic tarp now, preparing it to be transported. A gust of wind ripped down the street, lifting the tarp with a clamorous rattle and nearly carrying it away, if not for the quick hand of an EMT. Some of spectators still milling on the street screamed, the way crowds will do in sudden bad weather.

Will and Jack both turned away from it, cringing until the bout became a trickle of breeze.

“How long is it supposed to storm?” Will pulled his jacket tighter around himself.

“I’m not sure. I’d suggest staying in your hotel tonight.” One of the technicians waved Jack over, and he fixed Will with a meaningful look before he went. “You won’t have anywhere to go if it floods up there.”

\-----

Will replayed Chilton’s murder in his mind with the rapture of an adolescent reliving his first glimpse of a love. He had been easy; all of it had been easy. Chilton lived up above, one of the scarce minority who commuted down for work, and at night he walked an unmonitored half-mile stretch of city streets, to get to the nearest tram station. 

When he saw Will walking towards him down his route, he had smiled and caught up to him. “Lucky coincidence? I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you again.”

“It’s only been a day, Frederick. Did you worry I’d been eaten already?”

It was close to midnight, the sounds of traffic and solar generators muffled, the lights all around low if not off. Street lights gave the bare minimum glow by which to see, but it was enough to make a flickering spectacle out of Chilton’s expressive eyes and the silver head of his walking cane. Hearing his own familiar name from between Will’s lips set him glittering. He passed a curious sweep up and down Will’s body.

“Well, that, or I’d frightened you away.” He unconsciously leaned over his cane, holding the bauble on top with both hands. “Since you weren’t a fan of brandy, I recently unearthed a bottle of German gin I think would be more to your tastes, for the next time you lower yourself to visiting me.”

Will edged closer, looking down those inches of difference in their heights. Chilton really was small, wasn’t he? A human trinket, with all the integrity of tinfoil. His eyes were covetous, forgetting himself in the dark, rapt on Will’s face and the strong lines of his neck.

Tilting his head up towards the murky metal ceiling, Will said, “I could stand to have a nightcap, if you’d like to invite me up.”

Chilton blinked. The pinpoints of light in his eyes reflected all the brighter against the black of his dilating pupils. He looked afraid to smile, like he wasn’t sure whether or not he was in on the joke.

“Are you drunk?” he asked, swallowing.

Acting stung, Will retreated a few steps. To his relief, Chilton followed the bait with a single mind, the rubber on his cane scuffing the ground as he forgot to lift it. He reached out with his free hand and took a firm grip of Will’s arm. Safe in the knowledge that Will had not come to him as a spirit or a mirage, and that he was not running away any longer, Chilton’s eyes got darker, settling into a low simmering confidence. Hook, line, and sinker.

Will lifted his brows. “Yes, Frederick?”

“Can I persuade you to skip the nightcap for now?”

“What, are you in a hurry?” He laughed, all breath, but Chilton turned deathly serious. His stomach tightened in anticipation.

Chilton swallowed again, this time with more effort. “Yes.”

“What for?”

“Will you fault me for being eager?”

A few seconds passed quietly. Chilton gave his arm a little squeeze. The material of Will’s jacket rasped like a labored inhale.

“How far away is your hotel?”

“Not far,” Will assured, with a jerk of his head towards an unlit side-street. “I hope whatever poor intern you sent to drop off that letter knew the shortcuts.”

Chilton let go of his arm to follow him, but tagged so close behind that he might as well have hung on anyway. He radiated heat, his body humming louder than the buildings pressing in on either side of the alley. They took a bend in the street, and the only way to see was by the light pollution from a single lit window, high overhead. Will stopped. Chilton tried to whisper something to him.

The world dissolved into flickering light for a few moments. A million choices appeared and disappeared. He wheeled around and shoved Chilton back-first into the concrete wall. His cane hit the ground.

Winded, Chilton fought for enough breath to speak, instead producing a weak, provocative noise. He still thought he was being seduced, Will realized, delighted. His hands had fallen on Chilton’s shoulders, and he moved his hands down curiously, fingers splaying out so that Will held him to the wall by the chest. Chilton made no move to fight, nor to speak. Another sound, stronger and more plaintive, poured out of him; Will leaned in close enough to hush him with little more than a breath beside his ear.

“Not so noisy, Frederick.” Chilton shuddered. “I understand you like the attention, but let’s try to be discreet.”

He nodded in sharp jerking motions; the anticipation was killing the poor sucker. Will reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the cuffs. The slick metal glinted in a way that, if only for a second, his instincts told him was the flickering of light on a predator’s teeth.

In a voice on the edge of crying, but still offering no resistance, Chilton whined, “Oh my god.”

“Shh… You just can’t help yourself, can you?” He cuffed Chilton’s wrists behind his back, leaving him no weapons other than his voice.

Looking at Chilton’s face, lit dramatically in this trashy alleyway, Will could almost imagine having a liaison with him, without being revolted. If he didn’t know better, he would think Chilton was faking it. He wondered how long it had been, for him to be so easy. Perhaps as long as it had been for Will.

He whispered for Chilton to come away from the wall and get on his knees, which he promptly did. The ground was dry- they were too far inland for the rain to have reached. Chilton was blinking up at him too quickly, squinting to make out his face; he was slumped at the shoulders, shrinking prettily. On the exhale, he whined loudly. Will pulled his gun out of his holster and cocked it before he pressed the barrel right in the center of Chilton’s forehead. He fell completely silent. Will closed his eyes and breathed in the moment.

Uncocking it, he ran the tip carefully over Chilton’s brow. His voice became achingly cold. “I mean it, Frederick. For once in your life, shut the fuck up.”

He pushed the barrel to various points of Chilton’s face like he was trying them out before he settled. The whole time, Chilton just looked up at him, not blinking. Not breathing. He couldn’t risk the sound of the air through his mouth or his eyelids closing being enough to set that trigger off.

The barrel made its way to his mouth, slack and slightly open. The dead-shock look in his eyes finally gave way to true alarm, and he backed away a half-inch before he caught himself. Will softly clicked his tongue and Chilton let the black plastic just part his lips.

“This is what all that noise was for?” he teased, knocking the tip of the gun against Chilton’s teeth. “Come on. Like you mean it.”

Without any other option, he wrapped his lips around it. Will had to give him credit for showmanship. He gave it a proper working over, his taut lower lip brushing Will’s finger as he took the gun practically into his throat. He drew back and tongued the barrel. Will hardly had to do anything but hold it and feel Chilton moving rhythmically at his knees.

“That’s good. You’re being very brave,” Will congratulated, affectionate.

He sighed, his head falling back. Chilton’s mouth made an obscene noise, smacking and sucking against the metal. Will ran his thumb over the hammer and was gifted with the tight squeak of a stifled whimper. So, he still hadn’t closed his eyes. Brave, indeed. The impulse itched inside him to do it, despite the fact that it was even further off the script than he had already taken it, despite the fact that it was dangerous. If he fired, he would definitely be caught. 

A bad joke about popping Chilton’s cherry popped into his head, and he laughed through his nose. He didn’t do it.

Lifting his head, there was Hannibal, covered in clear plastic from head to toe. He must have gotten tired of waiting. His movements were somehow practically silent, slow and predatory stalking which brought him to stand directly behind Chilton. The look on his face straddled the border between anger and fascination. Will tilted his head.

“You look so beautiful,” he said.

With a plasticky crunch of his bodysuit, Hannibal clapped his hands over Chilton’s neck and twisted it quick and cruel. The jolt of it knocked the gun out of Will’s hand. Instantly limp, Chilton’s husk slumped over sideways. A line of drool ran from the corner of his mouth.

Hannibal watched him, attempting to be stoic. Will met him levelly, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. I was taking a scenic detour. I thought that was the point?”

Unwilling to argue with that, Hannibal stooped down to collect the body. He hefted it over his shoulder as though it weighed nothing, and Will’s stomach fluttered just a touch watching him. He broke out into a smile. Hannibal denied him a kiss when he stepped forward to meet him, so that his lips only grazed Hannibal’s cheek.

“Pick up your gun. When we return, you’re going to wash his clothes while I begin work on the body; he must be covered in the evidence of your fun.”

He scoffed, smile turning exasperated, but obeyed. Now it was starting to really sink in. All he could think about was what they had just done- it felt delicious, and he burned for wanting even more. His body coursed with electricity, every step heightening his own personal charge. Nothing had resistance anymore; he was a system without friction, and could only ever travel in the direction Hannibal had first pushed him.

The gun was still shiny with spit. Sliding it back into his holster, he made eyes over his shoulder at Hannibal, who despite himself, Will could tell, was feeling the same electricity.

“Envy is a disease, Hannibal. If you want something, all you have to do is ask.”

\-----

He wondered if he ought to tell Jack that there was no need for the FBI to keep paying for his hotel room. He hadn’t slept there in four days. The last time he had even visited was to retrieve his clothing. Then again, considering everything the FBI- and beyond that, everything Jack- had personally taken away from him, he had a right to waste their money.

They would have to leave the country soon; they had talked about it since the first night and quickly decided that the best course of action, to continue living an ideal lifestyle, was to make a discreet exit. Hannibal had stunning, seemingly limitless resources in and outside of the city. He had long ago procured his own false identification- phony passport, birth certificate, driver’s license, sometimes multiple documents tailored to different aliases and nations. Will’s would take a bit of time. After that, they had their pick of the world as to where they would settle next.

Will sat on top of the sheets, in his underclothes, reading _Candide_. Hannibal hummed beside him, glancing in at the contents of the book to see what it was. He was dressed down in a pair of what he only admitted were sweatpants after serious heckling. 

When Will ignored him, Hannibal nibbled petulantly at shell of his ear and asked, “What is your opinion? Have you read it before?”

“I never liked Voltaire.” Closing the book, he sought Hannibal’s lips for a soft, short kiss. “Just trying to reacquaint myself with French.”

“So you’ve narrowed down your preference? _Un pays francophone?_ ” Hannibal took the novella out of his hands and set it off to the side. Their fingers laced together, and his reverence for Will’s skin spoke of missing him badly, as though they had not seen each other all evening and woken up to each other that morning.

Sliding over to make room, Will replied, “France, but just for a start. I’d hate to spoil our good time by being another ugly American.”

Hannibal crawled over him, planting hands on the giving skin above the bones of his hips. In kind, Will grazed Hannibal’s sides with the rough pads of his fingers, and found him noticeably cool to the touch. Their foreheads met in the middle.

“How many languages could you teach me?” Will murmured, making tiny circles on the tip of Hannibal’s nose with his own.

In lieu of an answer, Hannibal stole his breath. His hands dipped below Will’s undershirt, making it ride up as he inched higher up his back. They moved sinuously as parts of the same body, so that Hannibal lay on his back and Will straddled over his hips with his weight pressing down on him. Will sat up straight and arched his back. Hannibal’s fingers pressed into the muscles at the base of his spine, working away the tension gathered there.

Hannibal unspooled him until he was pliant enough to play cat’s cradle with. With one hand, Will leaned forward to steady himself as he threatened to give to the soothing touches. His other hand he set down on Hannibal’s cheek, thumb sweeping absently over his flat, smooth lips.

Kissing his thumb, Hannibal asked, “How much do you want to know?”

“That’s a loaded question.”

Hannibal took the hem of Will’s cotton t-shirt and pulled it over his head, lingering for a moment before he tossed it. Given the heat, Will’s body- an average frame populated by sparse, dark hair- was already tacky with sweat. He broke out in gooseflesh. Hannibal ran his fingers over the planes of his chest like he was reading braille stippled into his skin.

“I have to leave early in the morning to retrieve your paperwork.”

Will cocked his head. “Are you making an excuse to rush, Hannibal?”

“Absolutely not.” He dragged the blunt nail of his thumb over Will’s nipple. “I could take forever with you.”

Will’s hand slipped under the waistband of Hannibal’s sweats. No briefs. He ran his fingers over the wiry hair, following the trail to Hannibal’s warm cock. Their noses brushed, and he smirked. “A little presumptuous.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Hannibal insisted. His breath caught for a moment when Will’s fingers closed around him.

Any ancient trysts with other men had never reached this point, because one or the other had always turned coward; now, awkwardly stroking Hannibal and feeling his perfect heft and size, he hated even more that he had deprived himself. He wanted everything back tenfold. He kissed up Hannibal’s cheek, mysteriously wet.

“You’re crying,” Will breathed into Hannibal’s ear, as though it weren’t obvious.

“Because you devastate me,” Hannibal explained, as though it were.

Hannibal turned his face to kiss him again, teeth plucking at Will’s lower lip. The tip of his tongue probed the sharp of Will’s teeth, so enthusiastic it was almost adolescent. Will nipped at it, the impudent blunt thing. Tears smeared between their cheeks.

Will pulled away. In a smooth, coiling motion he slid off the bed and knelt, perched on his ankles. “Take your pants off.”

Will coveted every new inch of bare skin, watching Hannibal lift his hips up to tug away the last veil from the revelation that was his body. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. An insane hunger twisted the length of Will’s insides, from his heart to his stomach to his groin. Something must have shown on his face, because Hannibal met his eyes and visibly shuddered.

Turning his attention to Hannibal’s cock, an alert and pretty red, Will went back to work at it. He thought he could feel it pulse with his heartbeat.

“Have I told you lately how exquisite you are?”

When Will looked up at him, Hannibal had a stray tear running over his cheek, which he absentmindedly wiped away. Hair was in disarray over his forehead, sticking to the light cover of sweat on his skin. Now and then, as Will pulled him through in long strokes, his breath would stall and become a groan, and his lips were parted so that the sweetness on his voice never got a chance to be muffled in his mouth. Will tilted his chin up and wet his lips. Intuitively, Hannibal put a finger to Will’s mouth- it was the finger that had wiped away his tear streak, and Will could taste it perfectly when he wrapped his lips around it and made love to it with his tongue.

Will grabbed Hannibal around the wrist so that he had two handfuls of his skin. The finger popped out of his mouth. His tongue explored the soft crevice between his fingers, and Will could taste light, salty sweat. A brief thought flickered through his head, that he could bite down on any one of those beautiful, long, musician fingers and take it clean off with little more effort than it would take to bite through a carrot. He began to suck on another finger.

The supplicating noises from Hannibal began to increase in frequency, urgency. Using his thumb to smear a wet pearl down his shaft, Will lapsed interest in Hannibal’s fingers and instead left a series of open mouthed kisses along his thighs. Under his mouth, Will felt muscles jump.

“How badly ruined do you want me?” Will spoke into his skin, little more than a whisper.

“Beyond recognition,” came the lovely, low reply.

Hannibal’s hand dug itself into his wavy mop. He grinned and moved his attention to the seam between Hannibal’s dark, heavy prick and his pelvis. The hair that tickled his nose was mousy brown and grey. He was preoccupied with fantasies of ripping, swallowing, and the heat pounded through him.

Will grazed his teeth over the base of his prick. “How would you do it?”

“I’ve already done it. I wasn’t sure you could be more beautiful, but your--” A full shiver went through his body. “Your ability to surprise…”

The hastening of Hannibal’s pulse, his breathing, the twitching and tightening of his legs and groin, revealed how close he was in spite of all of his pretenses at composure. He bit lightly around the curve of his thigh, leaving indents and little blooms of gentle red. He licked the wounds.

Will smiled up at him. Releasing Hannibal’s wrist, he teased, “Oh? You’ve worked so hard to elevate me, I might just get ahead of myself. Get ideas.”

“I’m very open to new ideas.”

“Well. You did say I could have anything I wanted.” Mock-sultry, he fluttered his lashes at Hannibal.

He kissed his way up the length to the fluid slick tip, sucking the crown of it into his mouth. A bitter, dark, salty taste- and no wonder, with all the wine and red meat. Delighted anyway, he bobbed his head and felt Hannibal scrape back and forth over his palate. His tongue curled and sought to catalog all that he could, the taste of him once again tempting Will to bite. Hannibal inhaled sharply. Not long now. He sat back on his heels and wet his lips, stroking faster.

“I want you to take me apart piece by piece while I’m still awake, and let me taste myself so I’m never left out of a single thought you have. And if you get bored, you’ll pull my heart out and rut the hole in my chest. I need you to savor me like I’m the last thing you’ll ever eat.”

Hannibal gasped audibly when it hit him, arching forward so sharply he almost pushed Will away. He spilled, wracked with shudders for each successive bolt that passed through him. Will caught most of the mess and slicked it down Hannibal’s needy flesh. Will narrowed his eyes as he tracked Hannibal’s body in those moments, each sweet square inch of him; he seemed to be holding his breath, or to have lost it, as a blow to the gut.

A soft, sated noise meant his normal breathing had resumed. His body slackened and muscles loosened, and he flattened out Will’s hair where he had rumpled it. Will really had knocked it out of him; he let himself lilt a bit to the side, so that his head could pillow on Hannibal’s thigh.

Hannibal pulled Will up with him when he lay back on the bed. They curled inwards towards one another like brackets closing a secret between them. For now they were both willing to ignore Will’s hard-on. He knew he must look ridiculous, staring at Hannibal enamored under heavy lids. For his part, Hannibal looked tired- content, but fucked-out.

Will hummed, shuffling himself closer and pressing their bodies flush together. He couldn't stand not touching. As automatically as if they had been doing it for years, Hannibal wrapped his arms around him with one draped over his waist and the other circling from below.

Will felt a mortifying lump of emotion in his throat. “This is nice,” he said, whispering so that his voice didn't come out of his mouth sounding too raw.

When Hannibal said nothing, giving him the space he needed, Will continued. “There were… years… when people wouldn't touch me at all. Because of things I'd done, or things that had been said about me, in the press or sometimes between colleagues. I forgot ever wanting it.”

“I’m doing my best to help you remember.”

Will sort of laughed at that, enough to clear away some of the uncomfortable strain of wanting to cry. Hannibal’s hand traced idle hieroglyphs on the small of Will’s back. Up over his hip, circling around to the front.

“It’s been so long,” Will whispered. He couldn’t remember the last time he could stand to touch himself, let alone when he had allowed another to do it for him. The hand- uncalloused, well-formed- plucked at the elastic of his boxers and slid below them.

Without even bothering to push away his underwear, Hannibal took hold of his flagging erection. Hannibal’s touch seared him. He was too smooth, too warm, too strange and too familiar. His body felt like an exposed nerve, every sensation with an edge of pain to it. Within a minute, it was too much. Imploring him to be gentler, Will bit down on the meat of Hannibal’s shoulder. Hannibal stopped obediently.

“Is something wrong?” His voice was softer, hotter, more strange and more familiar than his hands.

Will released Hannibal’s skin. “Too close.”

Hannibal withdrew, instead rubbing his thumb over the bump of Will’s hipbone. It was only when he sank back against the bedspread that Will realized how tensed he had been. He kissed Hannibal and muttered an apology against his lips.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Hannibal reassured him.

With a few touches, Hannibal convinced him to roll over onto his front. He lifted his hips a bit, one leg cocked, just so his length wasn’t pressed uncomfortably into the mattress. Fleshy lips made the rounds of his thighs, exploratory kissing. A hand slipped up the leg of his boxers so that Hannibal wouldn’t have to interrupt himself; Will twitched when the soft pad of Hannibal’s finger pushed snugly against his ass. Hannibal stopped.

“Well, come on,” Will muttered, tucking his head into the crook of his elbow. “I’m not made of fucking porcelain.”

Hannibal laughed at that- Will could feel him shake a bit with it, even if he kept silent. His finger circled curiously, testing. Will couldn’t keep his body from clenching. The slow rubbing was a dull, gradual pleasure, lowkey, coupled with the noteworthy sting of bites to his thigh meat, like oil simmering and popping in a skillet. The finger disappeared for a second, returning wet.

Hannibal pushed in to the first knuckle with relative ease, twisting slowly. His thumb found the smooth plane of skin behind his balls and stroked that as he seated more of his finger inside. Will bit down on the inside of his cheek. It was-- certainly not bad. Definitely unfamiliar, an untested set of nerve endings and a feeling of fullness he instinctively wanted to wriggle away from. Hannibal’s finger inched its way deeper until Hannibal had run out of skin. Will wanted to hold his breath, ease the waiting for something to happen.

The finger curved, crooked inside him. Will gasped. He went completely rigid, shuddering; the pleasure was a mindless, consuming thing that had come to life inside him all at once. He rocked back against it, the pad of Hannibal’s finger deliberately massaging the same tender point over and over. 

“Oh my god,” he wheezed, a blind man discovering that he could open his eyes and see color.

He absolutely burned, to the point that every insignificant stimulus- the sheets between his fingers, the air temperature, a thin smear of drool across his arm- felt good. Hannibal pressed his lips to the base of his spine. Shaking, he tried to pin down the pleasure inside of him, bottle it, like it would tear out of him. He couldn’t hold on forever.

He was consumed in a perfect instant and everything- everything- crashed through his tense and battered body. It lasted forever until suddenly it didn’t, and he let himself sink down flat against the bed. Everything felt distant, save for the echoes thrilling from his deepest point.

Hannibal kissed him up to his shoulderblades, congratulating him, before drifting away.

“Stay,” he pleaded.

Hannibal slid out of bed despite Will’s whining. A bundled up towel sailed through the air and landed on his side; he caught it before it rolled off the edge of the bed and used it to clean most of the mess off of himself. Hannibal rejoined him and he forgot about his chore, turning instead to clutch at him. Will could still feel the occasional round of sparks rolling over him.

“You’re so gorgeous,” Will murmured, face tucked tightly to Hannibal’s neck. “I don’t mean to wax poetic, but everything about you is a miracle. After everything you’ve done to me, all that’s left to do is eat me.”

Hannibal turned and kissed the top of his head. He felt warmth radiate down his body from that spot. “Eating you would be a waste, if I had the chance to have you alive.”

Will snorted, “Please, you love excess.”

Hannibal squeezed him in a way he supposed was meant to be reassuring, a little promise that his appetite had not gotten quite hellish enough to try it. Will hummed and nuzzled against him, like he could press himself so close to Hannibal that he could seep through his skin, like osmosis. Smiling, he dragged his foot over Hannibal’s calf.

“When do you think you’ll be ready to go again?”

“You’re insatiable. I ought to chain you up at night so you won’t chop it off and run away with it.”

“Charming.” With a little huff, he let his foot settle back down into the tangle of their limbs at the end of Hannibal’s bed. “Are you proud of yourself?”

As soon as Hannibal started to jostle him, he began chuckling to himself, guessing what was coming. Hannibal rolled him onto his back and hovered over him, propped up by one hand while the other cupped his cheek. His laugh was bright and full, and he wondered up at Hannibal like the man had fallen from grace just for him. His face hurt from smiling.

“Enormously proud,” he admitted, just before his lips descended on Will’s throat, which still buzzed with his laughter.

*****

The house was cold. He would have pulled the duvet tighter over himself and curled like a pill bug against the unnatural chill, if not for the noises. His brain was still poisoned with sleep, but he knew footsteps when he heard them. Whoever was there made no attempt to disguise or muffle themselves. By the sound of it, many feet on the hardwood in the hall.

There it was. The looming, sickening end, alone in bed in a dead house. He sat upright and faced it like the man he wanted to believe he was.

A plague of agents came through the door with guns brandished; he watched them with his eyes but his brain had fallen into the ether. If there was one satisfaction he could have taken from this, it was that Hannibal was nowhere to be found. Two agents dressed in all black, padded riot gear style vests and helmets, aimed their weapons at him. Semi automatic rifles- what did they think he was, a fucking elephant? They ordered him to put his hands behind his head. They manhandled him into cuffs and dragged him out of bed and onto his knees.

But Hannibal was free, he reminded himself. Hannibal had gotten away. And, as long as Hannibal stayed gone, Will would be free with him.

Jack came around when the house was determined to be secure. Will had been hoping to eke out another little satisfaction, to be vindicated by Jack looking smug and easy, looking down at him. That fatherly, ‘didn’t I always have you figured’ look. Proof, finally.

Jack was disappointed. He was pretty well guarded, reserved as a rule with that controlled, staid set to his lips. His eyes gave him away, like they did to most people. Almost haunted, a little heavy like he hadn’t slept well, and painted so clearly with shame that Will could feel it curdling up in his own guts. It crawled up in the back of his throat; it made him want to spit, and the only reason he didn’t was because he couldn’t desecrate Hannibal’s bedroom. His and Hannibal’s.

He looked down at Jack’s lapel. “What tipped you off?”

Jack got down on one knee so they were eye-level, and Will would have more trouble avoiding the plaintive sadness sitting like a beacon on that stern face. An agent came up towards them, and Jack held up a hand. Everyone left or found themselves in far corners of the room, badly pretending not to watch them in the periphery.

“Dr. Chilton. By extension, you.” Will winced, just a little. “The man was an obsessive at collecting information. He had microphones in every room of the hospital he was legally allowed to, including his office. You couldn’t have known that.”

“They got Son of Sam on a parking ticket,” Will muttered to himself, mockingly.

Jack clenched and unclenched a fist. Maybe Will could tease a punch out of him; it would feel good right about then. “This doesn’t have to be how things end. The more you cooperate with me, the more options you have open to you. Where is Hannibal going?”

“Eat shit, Jack.”

“I don’t want to lock you up again,” Jack murmured, his voice getting lower. ‘But I will’ sat unspoken, ringing in Will’s ears, in the split-second hitch in Jack’s breath. “I don’t think you want that either.”

Will snorted. He let his head droop, ragdollish. What had Jack ever known- and furthermore, ever cared- about what Will wanted?

“We know he’s left the city, and by tonight he could be anywhere in the world. I need you to tell me, so I can protect you.”

“Cause you’ve done a stellar job of that so far.”

The quiet was unusually pronounced, and Will realized that they were alone in the room now. “Why are you doing this?” That was a genuine question from Jack, like he was really struggling to wrap his head around it.

“You know… I haven’t been to an amusement park in years--”

“Jesus Christ, Will.”

“Let me finish. It’s important. Because now and then, if you pick the right ride, you get a split second of weightlessness, when your velocity hits zero at the top of the arc. For most of us, that feeling comes and goes in a flicker. Hannibal lives on that feeling, in that moment, forever, and I was living on it too. Nothing you could do would make me try to take that away from him.”

That was what did it, he supposed, because in the next moment Jack was on his feet and dragging Will up to the same. He frogmarched him out of the room, Will’s legs skinny-looking and bare below the hem of his powder blue boxers and his chest naked. Will closed his eyes while they walked. The agents were combing the place for the mounds of evidence they would find. Chilton’s other kidney was in the basement refrigerator, he remembered, and almost laughed. He tried to pick out Hannibal’s scent in the house for one last thing to remember him by, but the air tasted of Hannibal already being gone for years.

In the back of an armored police van, out of sight, Will crumpled on himself. He pulled his knees towards his chest.

Jack tried again with him when they'd arrived at the station. He wouldn't let anyone else talk to him, not for anything, just steering Will around and into an interrogation room. Cops and lawyers, many of whom Will had already met and recognized, moved like schools of fish. Stressed fish.

They cuffed him to the table. He made an effort to look uninterested. Really, he wanted to sleep; he had only been awake for an hour at most, but he could feel exhaustion scraping at his core. He couldn’t remember it ever being this cold in one of these rooms- but then again, he was usually wearing clothes at the police station.

Jack pressed him and pressed him from every angle- he had been somehow tricked, manipulated, why had he stopped taking his medication, he would get a favorable sentence if he cooperated, Hannibal had abandoned him, it was his duty to do the right thing. Will held back a yawn. He wouldn’t ask for his lawyer. Jack shook him, a step down from really roughing him up, and Will perceived it all but wasn’t quite there. He kept thinking about Chilton, not in the grey euphoric way he had been for the past few days, but with sinking, karmic clarity.

“Jack, can we please just get this over with?” he heard himself ask.

Will had stopped even trying to look at his face a long time ago, because Jack’s expressions were making him grief-sick. The two-way mirrored glass had him convinced that if he looked too long at his reflection it would suck the rest of his soul out through his eyes, so he didn’t look at that either.

“God dammit,” Jack said, just as weak as he was. “Why won’t you help yourself? It’s been in your power to do it.”

Will shook his head. There was something wrong with him.

“All you have to do is make a statement. Tell me you were confused, and that you want to do whatever you can to help this investigation now.”

“No. I knew what I was doing. I wanted to do it. I put my hands on Frederick Chilton’s neck, and I broke it, and it felt good.” He closed his eyes, hoping that sounded convincing enough for the untruth that it was. “That’s my statement.”

For a second, he almost thought Jack would hit him- a cartoonishly unfunny association to have with someone who had tried hard to be his father. Instead he was uncuffed from the table and crowded into a cell.

Time stopped happening to him after that. He could see it passing around him, in the different miscreants cycled in and out of the holding cell, in the disjointed faces from the press coming to interview him. He could have told them anything; he didn’t remember. They were the people you meet in heaven, who you had loved or saved or condemned. They were ancient arrests of his. They were priests, mummifying him and sending him off to quietus.

Will sat through his forgettable hearing. The press were inside the courtroom before he was, cameras at the ready to catch his lips forming the word ‘guilty.’ When they announced his sentence, and his lottery chances, he looked into the nearest camera and smiled. Was he high profile enough that they’d already started bidding on parts of him?

It wouldn’t be long before his ticket was drawn, considering how many he had in the pool. The Baltimore prison had a sizeable population, but with five names drawn a month, he couldn’t imagine waiting more than a year. Even if he weren’t raring to die, it was difficult to think about having to spend 30 years here. All cells were singles, including his, denying any inmate more than a basic living space; no common areas, no socializing. He had the privilege of being one of the inmates allowed to have books.

They made the announcements of each monthly lottery drawing over a rattling PA system with a soothing, automated voice. It was so far down the hall from his cell that Will had to strain to hear, kneeling as a penitent or a beggar next to the holes in the glass.

He cried when his name was called, almost three months into his term. The crying lasted for a while, on and off. At a point, he hardly knew what he was crying about anymore. Two hours after the announcement, the PA clicked back on, fuzzy and echoing unnaturally. He hadn’t moved far from his spot by the glass, and could hear the robotic, feminine intonations.

“An amendment… to this morning’s announcement…” Will pressed a hand to his gut. “Inmate 400509… Will Graham… Reprieved.”

He arched over his toilet and vomited oatmeal.

The other inmates on his block were still howling- congratulations, jealousy, some just for the sake of making noise- and thundering against their cell walls when Jack came to him. Will was perched on his bed. The tension in his body wound him up into a living bear trap, legs folded up tightly beneath him. He kept his face covered with his hands. All of the time he had been walking dead through, was catching up to him at once, in the form of Earth’s worst hangover. Jack tapped on the glass like a child at an aquarium.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Will asked around his hands.

“Your job isn’t over yet.”

Will started crying again, exhausted from keeping it held in. He didn’t make any noise, but he couldn’t help but shudder violently into his hands.

“I managed to cut a deal.” Jack’s voice was low but hopeful. “If you help us track down Hannibal, then when he’s caught you’ll be allowed to go completely free. No parole. No obligation to the Bureau.”

Will forced a laugh around his evident crying, saying, “Go fuck yourself.”

Jack pounded a fist against the glass, making Will jump and starting another round of wailing and thudding all around them. “Do you think this is what I wanted? That I don’t feel responsible for letting you get lost?”

“No. I know. I just want it to stop.”

At least he had the decency to wait for Will to stop crying before he said anything else. Will was still furled over on himself, but not quite springloaded.

“I’ll recommend on my way out that you be placed on suicide watch.”

“Thanks.”

The most companionable silence followed. Will dropped his hands and wiped them dry on his orange jumpsuit, then scrubbed his face with his sleeve. Another thing to resign himself to, just like old times. The least consolation he could take, was that all he had to resign to now was a quiet life. Will felt his heart sink so into himself. His grief stoppered, and clotted.

“Can you make me a promise, Jack? If you’re going to keep me like some kind of zoo animal, you can at least do something for me.”

Jack didn’t give a yes, but he didn’t give a no either. Will got to his feet, blood rushing from his head and forcing him to catch himself on the corner of his sink-and-toilet. Still feeling faint, black lace trimming at the edges of his vision, he stumbled over towards him. Jack wore all black, halfway between buttoned up funeral wear and noir detective. He was so tall.

Will put his hands on the glass, leaving skin smears on the surface. “If you catch him, you can’t save my ticket anymore. Let me go. Let me rest. Keep some part of me so that when his name gets pulled, he can eat me with his last meal, and settle things between us.”

Expressionless, Jack walked away.

\-----

An unfamiliar set of footsteps made themselves known at the far register of Will’s hearing. He had memorized the cadences of every guard and every visitor who habitually passed through his hall. He always knew when a new guest was on the floor. The steps were light. He looked up from his book and strained his ears, trying to decide what sort of shoes his stranger was wearing; something with a heel, he would wager, but nothing tall enough to be unsensible. A woman, more than likely.

She came closer, and the anticipation gave him a turn in his stomach. How long had it been since he had seen a new face? He might only have a few moments to get a glimpse of her before she left his line of sight.

She slowed, stopped. He wanted to cry out to her, plead with her not to tantalize him with the promise of fresh stimulus and then abandon him to the apathy of the concrete bricks.

Then, suddenly, there she was. She was sun-dark, with clear and perceptive eyes- large, but unafraid. Just like he had thought, she was a sensible dresser. She wore a sharp grey blazer that pulled tight around her wide shoulders. She carried a manila file folder. Oh. And she was there for him.

Neither of them said anything, sort of measuring one another before speaking. She had a country dormouse look, all brown and downy, wholesome. He was positive that if he coaxed her close enough to the glass and breathed deeply enough, he would catch a whiff of ultisol buried beneath whatever sensible, clean deodorant fragrance she used to blend herself in. He smiled at her fondly.

“Agent?” he asked.

“In training, sir.”

He could catch the hint of accent, that little lilt that was so difficult to stomp out. Appalachian, if he had to guess. Looking back in time like this- the glass at the front of his cell had been silvered, reflecting the bleary afterimage of a spry young backwater kid desperate to be anything else- made him feel suddenly very old. He nodded sagely, letting his eyes drift away and wander around the cell.

“Ah. They plucked you fresh out of the garden. I remember how that felt. Do you know why you’re here?”

At this, hesitantly, as though knowing intuitively that this was the wrong answer, she held out her file folder. Will lifted a hand, palm out, pulling a sour expression.

“Not even close. Jack Crawford has already--.”

“I know. You haven’t consulted on a single case Agent Crawford has tried to deliver to you since… being here.”

She tucked it back under her arm. He leaned on his elbows and looked at her meaningfully. “Let’s start with an easier question. What’s your name?”

“Clarice Starling.”

“That’s a beautiful name. Thank you. What did Jack tell you about me, Clarice?”

“Not much that I didn’t already know from reading, sir.”

“Please don’t call me ‘sir,’” he sighed, reaching up to press his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “It’s disorienting.”

She folded her hands in front of herself, trying to take a more assertive stance. He wanted to tell her to stop posturing- he knew from experience that it wouldn’t do anything for her ability to read him. His voice was getting scratchy, strained. He hadn’t spoken so much in a long time.

Will cocked his head. “What do you know about Hannibal Lecter?”

“Everything on FBI record… Mister Graham. That includes your profile of him, and the report of the investigation filed by Agent Crawford.”

“So, essentially nothing.” The statement brought a touch of indignation to Clarice’s face, and Will’s lips flickered with a half smile. “That’s not an insult to the FBI, or to your own deductive prowess, by the way, _Miss Starling_. For the record, you strike me as bright. But the whole of the FBI knows much, much less about Hannibal than I do- which is still essentially nothing.”

“That’s not exactly what Agent Crawford wants to hear.”

Will shrugged. She had a knack for stating the obvious, didn’t she? Clarice looked around herself for a chair and, finding none, resolved on standing.

“I wasn’t lucky enough to attend any of your lectures, but I essentially understand your method. So do a lot of other agents and trainees. We’re lucky to be able to extrapolate what we do, based on physical evidence, but it isn’t enough. The trail’s cold. You’re the only person left.”

“His other patient’s dead?”

“The one who was killing sex workers? Yes. Lottery.”

Forehead crumpling thoughtfully, he nodded. “Ironic.”

“That’s… not really irony, I think. More of a coincidence.” Clarice shuffled, like he had unbalanced her, heckled her in the middle of a product pitch. “The fact is that we cannot find him. Hannibal. I hold that you would know where to look. You’re only here because you know him better than anyone else you ever profiled.”

Will put his head down as though preparing to sleep. “I loved him. You can’t love someone and know them; love is wrapping another up inside yourself, making them into something new and without otherness. An extension of self. Never really them at all. So, any time spent picking my brain for Hannibal is a wasted effort, because all I could tell you about him is myself.”

“I’m not a philosopher but that sounds like bullshit, Mister Graham,” she said a little sharply. “Pardon my language. You’re looking to make excuses to be hurt and to lick your wounds a little longer so you can justify never fixing what you’ve done. I think you won’t look at Hannibal because you’re scared to.”

“Where are you from?”

Silence. Lifting his head like a Sisyphean boulder, he peeked over the crest of his arm at her. He could read that she was thinking of telling him not to change the subject, but was hesitant to employ such a cliche. She opened her mouth.

“West Virginia.”

“A gas town?” Just saying the word ‘gas’ brought the taste of fumes to his mouth.

She nodded, a little hesitant and a little embarrassed. “I shouldn’t talk much about it, Mister Graham. If you’ve said everything you’re inclined to, I’ll need to leave.”

A sudden anxiety grappled in Will’s stomach. She couldn’t have been allowed to spend very much time here, not if these were Jack’s orders. Jack was smart- smart enough to send him Clarice- but he played better poker than chess.

“You know,” he sighed, blinking so slowly that in the middle of it he almost fell asleep, “you are just Hannibal’s type. If you have the choice, don’t ever meet him.”

“I doubt I’ll have the choice.” She raised a brow at him. “You’re assuming what happened to you will happen to me?”

He could feel his expression turning cheeky, despite knowing he should take this seriously. “Of course. Aren’t we just alike?”

“I’ve never killed anyone.”

“Well, you’re young. Could you kill someone?”

“Did you think you could?”

“At your age? No. I was a squeamish, starry-eyed optimist. Even for a while after I’d done it, I didn’t think myself capable.”

“What clinched it?” Banter turned into an accusation. Will smarted from the sudden change in tone.

“I didn’t,” Will swallowed, faltering, “actually kill that woman. Not with my own hands. She committed suicide in the hospital while she was recovering. I didn’t understand. I still wish I could have been there when it happened, so I could decide how it went.”

Clarice looked so solidly at him that he instinctively looked away. “That's the difference. I know I could do it. I wouldn't be happy about it, but it doesn't frighten me.”

“You're tough. They're lucky to get you.”

Clarice smiled wanly and made to leave. Seized in a moment of fear that she was going to disappear in all her wonder and never be seen again, Will heaved himself to his feet.

“France,” he blurted. She half-turned, listening. “That's where he and I planned to go.”

“It's been more than a year since that, Mister Graham.” She pinched her brow, thrown by the sudden confession.

“I know,” Will replied with an adequate level of shame, even though he didn't know, because he thought it had been even longer. “But I'd still never told anyone. It seemed like the thing to do.”

Clarice stayed where she was, completely still for a few moments. Will could see her weighing his words against her options. “Would it trouble you if I was to come back sometime?”

Will sank back into his seat. “Come back whenever you like.”

\-----

He began to live for seeing her. She had less free time than he did; her visits were scarce and conditional to Will providing useful information, about Hannibal or about other cases. She always looked so healthy with sun.

At least they let him have books. He was well behaved, and the guards liked him for that, so they slipped him unapproved paperbacks when he asked. He made two rows beneath his bed, with the covers of his illegal books hidden in the back.

Jack would still come on his monthly trips, and since Will had resolved not to acknowledge him he would bring his own chair and sit in front of the glass. Jack spoke at him with unfailing patience. It was cheaper than therapy, Will figured, and so he let him continue to do it. The visits were probably good for him as well. If there was news, Jack would give him the latest about the team, about Will’s acquaintances, about his Clarice when she had no time to visit. She had graduated from the academy and Jack had snatched her up, halfway between a claim and a protection. Had Will not been so convinced that she could take care of herself, the idea would have had him frothing.

Now and then, Jack would give him letters from the outside world. Most of them came from Alana; she had gotten married even before he was put away, and he hadn’t heard or been told until far after the fact. But that was alright. He could understand perfectly her hesitation, awkwardness. She was in love with her wife quite a lot, he could tell.

He wasn’t allowed to write back- no writing utensils on suicide watch- and some kind of pride or stubbornness kept him from speaking to Jack, but Jack had kept Will’s end of the conversation going in absentia. Apparently, he played Will well enough to keep her fooled. That, or Alana knew and continued to send the letters anyway, for him. He wouldn’t put it past her. She was that kind.

She had taken his dogs, and she and her wife had kept two and she found homes for all of the rest. Bless her.

That was how indeterminate time passed. His meter could no longer be days, weeks, months, and instead became books, the rotation of meals, Jack, and his Clarice. 

He read about art history, read the classics. At times, Hannibal came out of the deep crevices of his brain and made some remark, rejoinder, disagreement, correction.

Jack did not come once, when Will knew by his internal clock that he should have. More time passed and he did not come. Clarice came, her formidable figure and sharp eyes, and he couldn’t help but be awed every time by how much she had grown since she was a trainee. Her father would be proud to see her not only follow him but surpass him, and more than likely outlive him. Will felt his pride for him, since Sheriff Starling was dead. Clarice had gotten generous with details over the years.

But now she was sort of blurring around the edges. She cradled a bundle in her arms, which turned out to be a lot of papers. Will had been sitting on the floor to read when she arrived, and he eyed the stack in her arms with apprehension.

“Jack hasn’t been by,” he said conversationally.

“Jack’s left.”

The words landed ugly in Will’s stomach. With outward calm, he asked, “What do you mean by ‘left?’”

Clarice looked down and away. “Bella’s not well. He retired to spend the rest of her time with her.” 

“Oh.”

“Special Agent Katz is the unit chief now.”

“I’m sure she’ll…” Will put a hand to his mouth. He wanted to cry very badly. For Bella? For Jack? For no reason?

“She’s completely capable. She was the right choice out of everyone, and it’s a relief to have someone at the head who isn’t another bureaucrat.” Strangely, her accent had grown more prominent in the time he had known her, and Will couldn’t be sure if it was because of familiarity on his part, or because she had made a conscious effort not to let it fade as Will had done with his patois.

He didn’t want to know what those papers were. “So, Jack and Bella?”

“She’s got some time.”

“That’s… good. Did they go back to Italy?”

“I don’t have all the details.”

Will wanted to scream into his own hands. Death, that unfeeling bastard, that great doddering metaphysical idiot, would take Bella and leave him.

Clarice allowed a moment to pass quietly before she hefted up the package of papers and said, “You’ll want to read these.”

“How long have I been here? In here.”

“I think five years. Give or take.”

“Will Beverly continue Jack’s tradition of buying my reprieves?”

“I suppose she will. She’s never said anything to the contrary, and I feel she would have told me, at least, if she told anyone.”

“You like her.” Will smiled, watery, when Clarice blanched. “It’s okay, I did too. Just be careful.”

“Please don’t give me a line about office romance, Will, I’ve heard it.”

“Good. So be careful.”

She made to slide open the exchange box, knowing that Will would find something else to talk about just to avoid the papers. “Wait,” he said, voice cracking.

“You should read these.” Her voice sounded nearly there, too. Unusually emotional, close to splitting like an overripe melon. “Jack kept them. He thought they would be helpful at first, and then when they didn’t prove helpful he thought he just shouldn’t… encourage you. Agent Katz inherited them from him with the position.”

When she slid them to him through the exchange, he saw that they were letters. At least a hundred letters from Hannibal. Awed, he brushed his fingers over them. They were organized in order of the day they had been received, and they had all been read, but it didn’t matter. He picked up the bundle and untied it, unfolding the letters which were written in pen on good stationery, and laying them out on the floor until his room was covered. He stood in the far corner of the small cell and looked out at the sea of Hannibal flooding into his last refuge.

“Twice a month. He would have written me a letter twice a month to be able to send this amount. And there was no way to track them, of course?”

Clarice shook her head. “The latest one came just a week ago.”

“He loves me,” Will whispered, more a prayer than anything.

Clarice left.

Will paced around the room, stepping carefully between the letters and rustling them just slightly as he passed. He picked one out of the sea at random to read. Hannibal wrote to him about all sorts of things- about art, about the country he was presently passing through, about people he had met and, Will assumed, eaten. There were a million red herrings in just one letter, for the benefit of the FBI- things Will sensed intimately were not true just by Hannibal’s language. But like poetry, every line however factually untrue boiled down to a spiritual and sentimental truth. His chest hurt. Hannibal missed him. Hannibal loved him.

He started to read them in order. In some of the letters, more than Will expected, Hannibal apologized. He had been careless, and Will had been caught. Stolen from him, he wrote. There were secrets in the letters, buried in obscure keywords, about Hannibal himself. Things which Will had never gotten to ask.

Will read each letter in the sequence until he knew he had it memorized and always would, and then he ate the letter.

After a few, he would gather the remaining letters up again and put them somewhere safe for the day. He recited some of them out loud, his favorite parts, working his mouth around the words to taste in them what Hannibal tasted. He had all of the letters inside of him by the time Clarice came back.

He was sitting on the floor with a book, smiling radiantly. When he looked up at her, his eyes were clear.

“I know where Hannibal is.” He dog-eared the page and closed the book, cheeky. “But I won’t tell you.”

To her credit, Clarice didn’t react much. No hysterics, pushing, demands. She nodded patiently and asked why.

He laughed to himself. “He’s waiting for me. All along, we’ve been playing the same waiting game. I can’t die until he kills me; he can’t die until I kill him. We are the masters of who lives and who dies. I need to be out there, and I need to see him- and he’ll kill me, or I’ll kill him, or we’ll both kill each other. And you… You’ll be alright. You’re tough. You’ll know what to do.”

Will closed his eyes, running his fingers down the embossed cover of the Odyssey. His Athena did not say anything, and he wondered if she was frightened. He looked at her again, and she was as clear-eyed as he was. Finally, finally. Nearly over.

“It’s funny, that Jack wanted me out there so badly to find him, and he withheld the one thing that would have tempted me.”

“He thought it would make you dangerous.”

“It does. Do you trust me?”

Clarice nodded. She hardly hesitated.

“Then get me out of here, and I’ll take you to him.”


End file.
